Light

A couple weeks ago I entered a contest over at The Periwinkle Sheep blog. I didn't win, but I was a runner-up and the prize turned out to be a skein of Karin's hand dyed yarn. I picked it up on a lovely day for a trip to the yarn store and marveled at the colors. Karin probably doesn't know that orange is one of my favorite colors (yes, I know that is weird!) or that I've been keeping an eye on her yarns for a while, waiting for one of them to speak to me (um, metaphorically anyway). This colorway, a special edition, was utterly, completely perfect in every way, except for one thing:



I find it impossible to photograph well.

I've tried natural light. I've tried various configurations of the flash on the camera and the extra flash I have.



The opportunity to photograph yarn in my house is generally short lived, between the shorter days, the energetic two-year-old, the newly mobile six-month-old, the cats, the cats' hair, the vacuuming, the toys, the teething... but what I really need is another brilliant sunny day and to figure out how to capture the glow. I'm still looking for just the right pattern. It has to be good.

Thank you, Karin! In case you can't tell, I love it! :)

Whoscarf, revisited

I finished the knitting on the Whoscarf on November 10. All I have to do is hide the ends, do a little light blocking, and add the fringe.



All those color changes leave two ends to hide, plus the cast on and bind off, plus there were some occasions when I needed to change balls of yarn of the same color... and this means that I have quite a bit of time to spend with my darning needle.



I've kind of hit a stride, though, and it's going quite well. I'm almost done, which means I have to start thinking about just how to photograph it and just how much insurance to get on the package when I mail it.

Notes of late

If you stop by and scroll down on this page, you'll see in the column on the right a little section with my current works in progress (WIPs) that changes pretty frequently as I work on things. A couple projects flew through so quickly lately that I forgot to even mention them here, so I'm going to give a quick rundown of the parade of finished objects.

A couple of crocheted potholders:



A chapstick holder made from these detailed directions:




A washable cotton Swiffer cover from this pattern:




Some crochet socks for Zee out of a sport weight superwash electric orange yarn that matches NOTHING but itself:




An Irish Hiking Hat for my friend Jenn:




Crochet holiday wreaths made on milk jug rings:




The Wave Hat for Spike:



This was my second colorwork hat out of Suri Merino and I really enjoy working with the yarn and the snuggly finished products!