Apparently, I win the Most Scarves Ever contest ~ hee hee! Like there's actually a contest and like anyone really cares! But, I do seem to have the most scarves and I'm still so surprised that all knitters don't have a ton of scarves. I tend to want to work up a scarf when I can't afford a lot of something really expensive or there's a yarn that I *must* have touching my bare skin ~ I mean, I could knit a sweater with them but usually there isn't enough of them for that :) And I don't really want to wear a 100% angora sweater since I don't live in the Arctic.

These aren't even the lot of them...there are about a dozen at the shop that I've designed and knit for store samples as part of my Scarf of the Month thang that I do ~ they're "technically" mine but I think I would sell them (and have sold a couple) if someone wanted them bad enough, except for my Mardi Gras scarf :)

The dark blue scarf is something I knit for myself while up North visiting my Grandma before she died...it's knit in seed stitch with a lovely mohair and a silk yarn...I alternated yarns every other row, carrying them up the side and it's gorgeous...this is the kind of scarf I need to buy a coat for! There's lovely teal greens in the silk yarn and the photo doesn't do it justice at all. The light blue one next to it is an acrylic scarf that I knit for Snow Fest when I was bartending in Frankenmuth. It's Red Heart acrylic, that Light and Lofty stuff. Kinda eh...but it's a pretty color that always looks nice on me and it's super long. Most of my scarves have the super long thing in common :) It's one of the first things I ever knit and there's a matching hat that's a bit too big but kinda cute still and I do wear it. Oh...I also knit fingerless mitts for the whole Ensemble. ha! We got to wear scarves and hats and stuff while we were working and something really nice would have gotten trashed behind the bar.

This scarf is really yummy...it's a Debbie Bliss alpaca/silk (I think) in a dark coral...I used a pennant stitch pattern, which I love to knit, and it has matching mitts too. Also one of my early knit projects which turned out fab...I think the set cost me about $40 + in yarn and I remember that my BIL was horrified at that. Silly silly boy.


The wacky orange and black scarf is my Halloween scarf...again, funky acrylic and some fun fur. I do wear it though during the Halloween festivities. Then the yellow fun fur scarf is what I was doing for the FRG when my husband was deployed...I was in the Lion Brand newsletter and they wrote up a pattern for it and donated about 300 skeins of yarn and a boatload of needles to the project. I'm very loyal to LB for that reason and am really excited that they seem to be doing some very cool things with their yarn lines these days. The write up in the newsletter was kinda goofy but it was a cool thing at the time. I'm not going to make it easy for you to find the article, but if you're really dying to read it and see the goofy-ass picture, you can search for "Knit the Distance" on the LB site (if you absolutely must)

Ripples in My Stash V1 (photo directly left) is now done and wearable as all get out! I'm going to blog it this week sometime...I have more pics and directions for doing the whole russian join, measuring out scraps, etc.... Love this scarf and it's about 100 inches too. So soft, (alpaca and angora handspun yarns) so dreamy...my scarf design abilities are definitely improving :) I'm working on V2 as my shop Scarf of the Month and doing it in a funky merino/angora/nylon tiny little half boucle type yarn. It's a longer repeat of the pattern (wider, actually...it won't be a longer scarf!) and I'm working it on size 6 needles so it's taking a bit of time but it's COOL.

And then there's the aforementioned and photographed Infamous Dr. Who Wonder Scarf...OMG! I left the camera at work but I'll try to take a pic of me wrapped up like a mummy in it tomorrow. This thing is like 13 feet long...you MUST drape it around your neck or it'll drag the ground. And it's quite wide. Just an oddity fer sure. BUT...everyone who sees me wearing it covets it...they DO! I can totally wear the alpaca/silk stunner or the gorgeous mohair silk and no one says a word. Wear the wacky Dr. Who Scarf and they are beside themselves. Go figure. They all want one and, of course, can't afford one because it took a thousand hours or so to knit. It's so wide and horribly long that I can totally drape it over my head and swath myself against sub zero blizzard conditions. It's hilarious...it started out as a gag gift, which I couldn't part with, and kind of a joke for me...I mean, plain garter stitch in ACRYLIC??? But, the Red Heart Soft Yarn is kind of good, really it is. Very soft, very drapey. And the color choice from the Season 15 Dr. Who scarf is a winner :) I want pillows for my sofa outta the leftovers. I'm thinking Log Cabin pillows will soon be mine!

These scarves were not harmed in any way during the photo shoot, although they are lying naked in fresh snow

Post Holiday Recovery...

I think it's going well! I'm back posting, anyway :) I totally burned out on holiday knitting and didn't even pick up my needles until last night. The list of stuff I did for Christmas is really pretty impressive, but the burn out is NOT! I made: 4 earflap hats (5 if you count the really huge one I made and had to do over...I didn't rip it out either, I was too disgusted!), one beret, 3.5 scarves, spun and knit one shawl, a pair of socks and a half, one sweater for the hubby, 3 sets of fingerless mitts and one embellished blue jean bag. I think I started the sweater before Thanksgiving but I didn't start anything else until after, so it was kind of a lot, eh? I am a much faster knitter since I opened the shop.

The one thing I actually knit on last night is totally weird and I'm oddly fascinated by and in love with it! First of all, it's ACRYLIC (gasp!) and it's totally huge and strange. One of my dear friends and customers' husbands comes into the shop with her all the time and is a great guy. We always chat about sci fi channel shows and one of those is Dr. Who. Well, I came across this weird Dr. Who scarf site and I thought...ahHA...I'm going to knit that for him. Well...even though mine is super modified, it's a massive thing! Mind you, I never saw the 80's show, and am not a totally rabid fan of the new show although I watch it cuz it's cheesy but not in a bad way and it's on before Battlestar Gallactica, of which I *am* a rabid fan. (not the old ones...just the new series).

So, that's it, in the pic! The original scarves were really long...like from 15-22 feet! And wider than mine. I'm working it in Red Heart 4 ply "Soft Yarn" which is much nicer than the old, regular Red Heart and it's on size 8 needles. I've no idea how long it'll be, but it already hangs to the ground. T Baker wore it to the ground while still being able to make a loop that hung down to his waist. It's very soft, and I just think it's cool for some odd reason. It's kind of a huge, impractical thing for the friend's hubby so I showed it to him and he chose homemade bread for a gift instead (wonder why ~ ha!) so I'm keeping it.

I decided on the Season 15 scarf, and then went by the list of row numbers but only worked half the rows called for. I don't think the scarf will be half the size, since the patterns call for sport weight and I'm using worsted. The ends are the worst part, weaving them in, but I do it as I go along and then glue them down ~ really! I use this clear fabric glue that's washable and use a dab to secure the woven in ends. I use it all the time...my Mom sews down her ends but NOT ME. It works really well :) My husband thinks I'm a nut case and he's probably right. I actually will probably use this left over acrylic to knit some pillows...I normally hate acrylic but this stuff is kind of OK. I like how all the colors in the scarf work together.

The only other selfish thing I've been doing is spinning up some spindle crack ;> This is some of the weird partially spun stuff that I pull out of the wool/silk laps I sell. Some of it's wonderful and some of it's too impossible to spin. I call it "spindle crack" because once I start with this stuff, I can't put it down! If I'm lucky, the pieces are loose enough so that I can draft them out and then they spin with almost no effort. Some of the pieces are too tightly spun and can't be drafted so they don't qualify as "crack". I dye some of the laps I sort out of the stuff I sell, then grade it for the website and sell it. But not the crack...oh no! I keep it! I keep it ALL! It's mine and I'm totally selfish about it. Not all the pieces are long, either...some are but there are shorter pieces. It would be a drag on the wheel cuz you'd have to join all the time, which isn't such a drag on a spindle spinning lace weight :)

I played with the idea of selling it, cuz right now I have a lot but that ain't gonna happen. This is being spun on my Bosworth featherweight and actually, I'm done with that spindle full and it has other colors on it too. There's never a lot of it so I just spin it all together and one day I'll ply it all together and have some totally wild yarn to knit with. This will probably end up being about a light fingering weight. The stuff is just soooo soft and silky...sigh...

I've started a UFO knit club too...right now it's just a yahoo group but I'm going to work up a team blog for it. And that's about it for me for the moment. We're in the middle of remodeling our master bed/bath and our home is a construction zone and it's making me pretty crazy. And the bunnies need plucking, and the house needs cleaning and the shop needs tending and the website needs updating...sigh. But I'm not working all day, every day on my days off! Nope.

BTW...I did upgrade to the google blogger thing and I'm pretty pleased with it so far.