Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Socks (again) & Something Completely Different

I finished the socks I was making out of the Regia.



I won this yarn last October from a blog I read (Romancing the Yarn). It's the first time I worked with Regia and I loved it. Great feel and the resulting socks are a dream to wear. I love the colors too! (The older I get, the more I'm into "wild" socks.) Thanks to all the wonderful ladies over at RTY!!!

On another note....

I've started something completely different from anything I've ever knit before.



It's going to be my first shawl. I'm knitting it with laceweight yarn (Alpaca Cloud, 100% Baby Alpaca from Knit Picks in the colorway "Horizon") I'm using the Adamus pattern from mimiknits.com.

This is my first venture with lace knitting, or a shawl for that matter. I'm not sure I was knitting tight enough at the begining, it looks a little wonky. But I've read enough knitting blogs and articles to know that when knitting lace it generally looks pretty wonky until you block it at the end. So I'm hanging in there and planning to complete the pattern and block it before I make any judgements.

The yarn is SOOOOO dreamy! Talk about a pleasure to knit!! It's ubersoft. The resulting fabric thus far feels like a cloud. I'm excited about trying something new!

Happy Knitting!

Friday, March 07, 2008

Dear Barbara

Below you will find the contents of an email I just sent to Barbara Bretton, author and one of the owners of the knitting blog, Romancing the Yarn.




Dear Barbara,

You have saved my life. If not my life, at least my sanity.

Neither of us could have guessed at the beginning of November that this winter would become one of the top 10 highest snowfall totals since the dawn of time (or since they started keeping such records) where I live in Iowa.

Of course it can look lovely falling from the sky, large white flakes floating innocently down to stick on your lashes and make toddlers giggle with glee. They do not scoop. Nor do they notice how quickly the innocent white begins to fade to shades of gray, suddenly revealing all that is polluted and ugly about the season. It has piled up here like ketchup on my son's fries and we who must put on layer upon layer to go out and make paths are weary of it all.

The Regia sock yarn you sent from Romancing the Yarn late last year is anything but white, gray, brown or black.

It is vibrant! It is defiant! It is just what I needed to remind me that even though more snow may yet arrive, it is March by golly....and Mother Nature has only so much more freezing ability left in her arsenal before she must yield to the warmth of the sun growing closer by the day.

I began knitting. Simple socks. Plain socks. But socks which by their very color scream "Warm weather and bright colors are coming! So look out winter! Your days of dreary gray are numbered!"

Thank you.
Kim