A Little Bit of Feathers...

In Toronto this weekend was the Downtown Knit Collective's Knitters' Frolic.

I picked up a few treats for myself, including 2 skeins of Malabrigo Lace in the colour Sealing Wax (102). It's a lovely rusty red, that I can't quite photograph accurately, but this is fairly close.



The wonderful Purple Purl ladies had sale prices for many of my favourites, so I managed to also snag two skeins of Fino by Alpaca with A Twist. It's a 2-ply laceweight alpaca/silk blend, and so scrumptious. With 875 yards in the skein, I'm excited to knit up some gorgeous shawls.

And so, I have a little bit of a Featherweight Cardigan. And I love it already!

I managed to wind most of the laceweight during a car trip that was supposed to be an hour long, and turned into a three-and-a-half-hour drive... but man did it look gorgeous in the skein:


My favourite part of the event? When another knitter came up to me (wearing my Whisper) and said: "Can I show you to my friend?"

She grabbed me by the arms, and took me over to her friend who was contemplating a Whisper. I then got to show off the malabrigo lace goodness, and shared the shrugigan love.

I was of course also petted by all of the ladies throughout the course of the day. It definitely pays to wear a snuggly knitted item to a yarn festival!

Christmas Prezzie #4 is finito!

What a wonderful and quick project! I think these will be go-to gifts for a while! One skein (just just barely, I had about 2 inches leftover, even after I skipped a row of the second wristwarmer!) and so super fast!

Hopefully the recipient will LURVE them!

Project Details:
Yarn: Manos Silk Blend in the gorgeous colourway, 3109 (what a name!).

Needles: Addi Turbo Lace (mmm... still obsessed) 4.0 mm circulars, and Holz & Stein Rosewood 3.5 mm circs for the 'smaller size'. I went MacGyver for the cables and used a paperclip.

Pattern: Toast! by Jennifer Campbell of the Purple Purl, free pattern with purchase of Manos Silk Blend or Malabrigo Silky Merino

Ravelry Link: click here

Gratuitous photos:






These will be very hard to give up, but they definitely have given me a one-skein project for the luscious balls of yarn that I never know what to do with, but desperately need to take home.

Now, to finish the last knitted Christmas present!!!

Christmas Prezzie #2 just started

I'm doing a super-snuggly-soft hat for my Dad out of this luscious yarn:


It's Sulka, by Mirasol Yarns. A 60% merino, 20% alpaca, 20% silk blend. It is a gorgeous black, with tiny shots of brown and blue throughout. Enough to keep my interest while knitting, but not enough to read as anything other than black for my conservative Dad.

And when you buy Mirasol yarns, a portion of the purchase price goes back to Peru. You can read about it at their website. I'm going to include one of the yarn tags with the hat, so my Dad gets the story too.

So... the hat has gone through many pattern ideas in my head.

Idea #1) Striped black and grey hat -- Actually, this is what my Dad requested, originally. I asked him (in Heathrow Airport) if he'd actually like a hat I knit him, and he asked for a soft cashmere black and grey hat - you know, with stripes. I don't think he actually wants stripes, he just thought of the two colours together. So I've vetoed this one as I know what the yarn is like.

Idea #2) Beautiful, manly cables on an all-black hat -- This was my brilliant idea, and thankfully I talked to Jennifer at The Purple Purl about it because she mentioned cables won't show up on black, and I should do grey instead for them to show. As you can see, I aborted the cable plan and went with black.

Idea #3) K5, P1 rib with stockinette every other row -- A fantastic idea from Jennifer, but I decided I wanted a real 'ribby' look at the bottom edge. This will be a hat I knit out of a thinner-weight yarn ... probably for me.

Idea #4) K2, P2 rib at the bottom "ear" edge, stockinette to the top -- The final pattern! This is what I'm knitting, and I'm using the hat/head proportions from The Yarn Harlot's Knitting Rules. Seriously, this book has saved me more times than I can count. I'm knitting a hat with a 23" circumference, and knitting for 7.5-8.5" before the decreases. I think I can handle that.



And yes, all I've done is cast on. But it's sooooooo smooshy already!

Scrumdiddliumptious!

I paid a first (and looooong overdue) trip to my LYS, The Purple Purl, this afternoon. (What!?! I've only been in the neighbourhood for 11 months, cut me some slack!)

Wow.

They have an astounding assortment of incredible yarns. I would deem them all suitable for the YarnSnob within me . . . all except maybe for the sequined bamboo-something, but we'll pretend I didn't see that.

I discovered some lovely finds today, and thought you should know about them. My first thought for each of them was, "why don't I know about this?" so I thought I should give a Public Service Announcement:

1) Mission Falls 136 Merino Superwash - ravelry link

This seems to be a perfect all-purpose merino. It's a DK weight, and at about $7 per 136 yard ball, I could see this becoming a house yarn. It is soft and scrumptious, and I want to knit everything with it. They also have a heavier-weight non-merino that is very soft, but this was perfection in my eyes.

The colour range is also extensive, and most of the colours the LYS had in stock would have blended beautifully together.

I will definitely pick some of this up for baby stuff in the future.

2) Malabrigo Silky Merino - ravelry link

Um, yum. I want to bathe in this. Daily.

This is a DK weight. If it had been laceweight I would have bought extensive amounts. Probably the entire stock.

Most of the colourways were solids/semisolids, but there was one plum/yellow variegated skein that nearly made its way into my purse. To die for.

3) Mirasol Miski and Mirasol Sulka - ravelry links here and here

Both worsteds, both super soft. So soft that they could be a hat for my Dad, and that's saying a lot. The Miski is 100% baby llama (and yes, you can feel it), while the Sulka is a wool/silk/alpaca blend.

The colourways are gorgeous - there is even a black yarn that has so much subtlety it wouldn't be a bore to knit with.

Yup. Go. Pet.

Spend money, I promise it will be worth it.