Pictures

Here's the yarn from my last post. The green and blue skeins are the sock yarn, Anne, and the brown one is Esperanza, the chunky alpaca. My plan is to work on the socks (as well as my part of a joint baby blanket three friends and I are making for fourth friend, and an Argosy scarf that I'm knitting along with my mom) this month, when I'll be traveling a lot--the Esperanza is just too bulky to be good travel knitting.

I think I've written about the baby blanket before--its going to be similar to some of the pieced blankets that a bunch of other knitters have made, with other of the blanket in yellow (that's my part, because I'm the most obsessive/speedy knitter of the group), and the other half divided into thirds--one light green, one blue, and one purple.(Let's hope I'm remembering correctly that I didn't tell the friend this is for about this blog, huh?) It will be set up kind of like this... but there's all that knitting to get through first.

The yarn is Knit Picks Swish. I haven't tried that many of the Knit Picks yarns (I've actually made socks, gloves, and two shawls from Essential, Merino Style, and Alpaca Cloud, respectively... and I may have also bought some Main Line, Andean Silk and Cotlin to swatch with, for possible designs, but I haven't actually swatched yet), but I've been really impressed by it. You know how when you knit with gorgeous yarn, part of your brain is constantly thinking how great the yarn is? That happens to me with Knit Picks. Who knew I could be made so happy, so cheaply?

Oh wait! I've used Shine too. I take that "I haven't tried that many"back--I've used much more Knit Picks than I thought. Shine is actually the one I've least happy with, since that sweater has gotten a little fuzzy--although in the yarn's defense, it's been heavily worn and washed in the machine (mostly in a sweater bag, but not always) for nearly a year.

And on to the great mother-daughter Argosy KAL of 2007: evidently, my refusal to wear a grey sweater she'd made for me is the reason my mom stopped knitting. (Clearly, I deserved that unloved vest I knit for Kevin!) Now that I know better, I'm trying to lure her back into the fold with hand-dyed wool. Starting May 1, she's going to knit Argosy from some blue Miss Priss and I'm going to knit one from either Alpaca Cloud or Schaefer Andrea. I'm currently leaning towards the Andrea, since I'd like to be able to work on this in Sierra Leone, and I have this feeling that alpaca is not the best fiber for West Africa in May. Also, I think the colors need a less complicated pattern, and I'd like to save the solid yarn for something more complicated.