It's sabotage, I tell ya!

So, here I am happily knitting along on my Loopy Ewe swap project and I see the light at the end of the tunnel when along comes this 100% Alpaca. Two women I work with raise them and I think they have about 20 in their flock. The animals had their first shearing a couple months ago. I said to one "when you have it spun I'd love to make you something out of it!" About 10 days ago, one of the women, Nancy, brought it to work and asked if I could make a scarf out of it..did I have enough yarn? I stared at it. Soooo pretty. A taupe/gray kind of color. Too thick to be worsted, too thin to be bulky. I said...sure..without really thinking. Something I'm very very good at. Nancy said..um..maybe two scarves? One for me and one for Kim? (the other owner/raiser). I said...sure..without really thinking. Nancy didn't have the yardage, only the weight. 8oz altogether in 4 2oz hanks. I couldn't believe my luck! Not only did I have homegrown yarn to work with it was beautiful stuff. Handspun. Expensive if I were to buy it. I practically ran with it.

It looks a little bluish and thats my fault. I'm not really great at pic taking yet. Anyway, I have one scarf done. Just a plain one in mistake rib and thankfully she didn't want it long. It's about 42 inches long by 5 inches wide. I did not have enough yarn for both scarves, so Nancy gave me another 4 ounces and that should do it. The second scarf is a double cable. I modified the Irish Hiking scarf pattern to make it narrower, CO 30 sts instead of 42. Its moving along nicely and I should have it done by Friday, barring any interruptions. THEN I can get back to my Loopy project and finish it!
I'm also gathering stuff for my partner for the goodies. Kinda fun actually. I got some stuff from Sheri, of course, but I want to find a couple things from me.
After I finish my present WPI's, I'm gonna take the plunge and attempt a lace shawl. Oh. my. God! This is a scary thing for me because I have a terrible time reading charts. I found some tips for chart reading at Knitty.com. They're very good and that's what I'm going to do. Until I get the hang of the pattern, I'm going to write out each row on an index card and use a small metal ring to keep it together. The pattern is Kiri http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/kiri. Its so pretty and I think I can do it. I bought this amazing laceweight yarn from Little Knits called Shaefer Trenna. http://littleknits.com/products.php?cat=375 It was the most beautiful laceweight yarn I've seen and I've looked at pages and pages of it. When its delivered, I'll take a pic of it and post. I'm making this with Lynn (my sister) in mind and the colors of the yarn: seafoam green/silver/cream ought to look beautiful on her with her red hair. I truly don't care if she ever wears it, although it would be awesome. I just want to make something special for her. If I succeed there'll be no living with me. LOL!
Lastly, I also got some Sheepaints Bamboolaine for socks. I have more sock yarn than I'll ever knit, I think. I got it from Sheri at the Loopy Ewe. . Pretty, huh?
This is a long post, I know. It's been a while since I've written anything and I tend to gab a lot. Plus, I finally figured out how to put links on my blog here. Good ol' Ravelry!!
Busy week ahead. C-c-cold here today! Going to make Chicken Noodle soup from a recipe I found in Cooks Illustrated Soups and Stews magazine. It looks good, not too hard to make and its a perfect day for it. Got laundry to do and bills to pay. Ya know..life getting in the way of knitting again. Have a great week!

Catching up

Trying to be good and finish my Loopy Ewe project and its coming along really nice. I hope she likes it..and I hope she doesn't look TOO closely at it. lol..might be a teeny mistake or two. I've got a lot of things waiting to be knit up but I'm going to behave and actually finish something before I start another.
I got this gorgeous yarn from WEBS, Di'Ve Zenith. It was $3.99 a skein, which was half off, I think. Anyway its the yarn I want to use to make that Irish Hiking scarf I've mentioned before in an earlier post. Heres a pic of it:

If the yarn knits up as pretty as it is in a ball, then I'm getting more of it, not the same color, to knit a sweater!! Yes, folks...shes gonna try the big time. I'm going to knit one that actually fits! I have a pattern for a basic knit-top-down raglan sleeved sweater. I just need to find a stitch pattern that won't bore me to death, and at the same time doesn't frustrate me. Not easy to find.
Things are back to normal around here. I'm slowly putting away all the decorations from Christmas. Bummer!