The Knitting Report and Other Topics

I love yarn. I love knitting and, to a lesser extent, crocheting. I love the feel of the yarn slipping through my fingers more than I care about the final result. In recent years I've done a lot of starting projects, working on them awhile, then putting them away and starting another project and working on it for awhile, etc., etc. I haven't finished much in recent history. But I'm close to actually finishing something I started just a few weeks ago.

I monitor a blog called The Yarn Harlot, written by Stephanie Pearl-Macphee, which is entertaining on many levels (you can find a link in the left column). Around Thanksgiving she started posting photos of some scarves she was knitting for Christmas presents. I was smitten with the yarn, hunted around Austin until I found a yarn store that had it in stock, and tackled my own scarf. It's a really simple pattern, plain 1 x 1 ribbing and you alternate two colors of the yarn. The WOW factor is the yarn that moves from shade to shade, keeping you completely enthralled as you watch the new color combinations emerge.

I am so enjoying this little project that I'm seriously considering getting another 4 skeins of yarn and making another one. The yarn is Silk Garden by Noro and it's soft and pleasing to the touch (though it might be a little scratchy as a sweater). One of my problems with knitting these days has not been losing interest, but being unable to stay awake. The rhythm of the needles and the feel of the yarn has a tendency to lull me off to sleep. Complicated patterns that require concentration are just beyond me under the present circumstances of chronic exhaustion. But this pattern, so simple it practically knits itself, has been so much fun to watch as it develops that I've not gone to sleep on it once.

An added bonus has been getting to use a fancy pair of wooden knitting needles I bought awhile back and up to now had not had a pattern I could use them with. I am having great fun all the way around. Maybe I don't need another scarf - maybe I should calculate how much I would need for a vest.

I was cleaning out my camera tonight and discovered a photo I took while out running around last week. It struck my fancy, so here for your enjoyment is a photo of the top of the courthouse in San Marcos. Nobody does blue sky like Texas.

Gotta run. Still got two half-skeins to knit up.

LSW