cash cable

This is one of my many holiday knitting projects, and I've just finished the first ball of yarn, so I thought I'd show it off. It's the reversible cable pattern from Scarf Style, which I'm knitting in debbie bliss cashmerino aran on size 9 needles. It's a wonderfully soft yarn to work with, and the colors is good and neutral (it's more khaki than the greenish that this picture captured), which its recipient should appreciate. One 90m (98 yd) ball of yarn resulted in about 16" of scarf, about 4.5" wide.

Just say baa...

MADRID, Spain - Farmers led a flock of hundreds of bleating sheep through downtown Madrid on Sunday in an pungent protest urging the protection of ancient grazing routes threatened by urban sprawl...Smiling crowds lined Sunday's route past McDonald's, Starbucks and august buildings like the Bank of Spain. Small children squealed with delight as they petted the thick, matted wool of the marchers, a sea of white with the odd black sheep mixed in.

My favorite thing is that the article was written by Daniel Woolls. Perfect.

Read the full article on yahoo news here.

prayer shawl

My grandmother has been sick for awhile, and has thus been on my mind a lot recently. That has finally inspired me to use some of the Schaefer yarn that I've been hoarding for a long time now. While I'm not at all religious, my grandmother is, and will hopefully appreciate the thought behind a prayer shawl:

The yarn is Miss Priss, and the colorway is Eleanor Roosevelt. I love most of it, but the light blue pops a little too much. I might overdye it once I'm done, or I might just try to get used to it. The yarn is incredible to work with. Soooo soft, with a nice loftiness for a two ply yarn. The k3 p3 pattern is also really comfortable to knit.

(oh, I also switched to blogger's new beta layout thingie. I have no real idea what it means).

Studio Envy

I dyed the last of my merino roving this weekend. I haven't spun in weeks, and I was itching to do so. I thought I was dyeing things in colors that made vague sense together, but as it turns out, since I did the painting of the roving in my basement with not enough light, they weren't quite what I expected. Luckily with roving, everything tends to spin into a yarn that makes sense, color-wise, since all of my dyes are fairly similar in terms of saturation, tones, etc. I toured some local studios this weekend and coveted their high-ceilinged, naturally lit, beautiful space.

So, since Saturday, I've spun up 140 yards of a magenta/purpley batt that Paula bought me at the last Sheep & Wool, and 90 yards of a three-ply merino that I dyed Sunday, which is, unsurprisingly, purple.

I also learned the my new cat, Harriet Scampi, is enamored of watching the plies fly by as I make yarn. Watching the dog watch the cat watch the yarn is good entertainment.