An armful of yarny goodness.

Jordan's Whale02
Originally uploaded by runawaypenguin

I have been dutifully working on Alouette, and I've managed to catch up to the length I had before recognizing my mistake with the stripes. I will be much happier finishing the sweater now that it has symmetric color striping, but there was something interesting about the not-quite-as-rigid color changing. I think my next experiment with stripes will be a little more spur of the moment.

In the meantime, here's what I have hiding in my closet (because really, how many pictures of that sweater can you stand in a row?). It's all Dale Baby Ull. I wasn't sure about the orange before I held them all up with the skein of white, but now I'm convinced that the colors will work. I'm still waiting for a circumference measurement on the intended recipient, and I don't mind the short repreive. Having already missed the birthday, any further delay that isn't my fault is fine by me.

Fairy Godmother

dscn1656
Originally uploaded by runawaypenguin

Were it not for the fact that I know for certain that Marylen has needed to have her hips replaced, I might mistake her for my fairy godmother. Not only does she have the most incredible stash I have ever seen, but she sent me away with more yarn than I can wrap my head around. These five skeins of heavy worsted yarn from Brown Sheep are only a fraction of what she gave me, but the colors were hard to pick out in the larger photo and I wanted to show them all together.

Grumperina's tutorial the other day about making continuous stripes (where they line up all the way around instead of having a "jog" when you switch to the next color at the end of a round) is tempting me to use a few of these to make a striped kid's sweater, but I'm also considering making a pullover with a fair isle yoke. Whichever sweater I end up making, the leftovers will definitely become a striped hat of some kind.

It would be fantastic if this yarn ended up being for a young relative. My brother and I are expecting to have 8 nieces, nephews, and second cousins under the age of five by the end of June, and so far only one niece has received a hand knit. I'm not sure about the scratchiness level, however. I know that Elizabeth Zimmerman would say that children need exposure to sturdy wool early and often, but I don't want to make something that won't be worn. Any thoughts? How bad is it to give someone else's child a scratchy sweater?

Bizarre knot

I've come across this kind of knot in Noro before, but this surprised me. The Rowan cotton has so far seemed predictable and uniform. I wonder what made this skein different. There were a few other small problems around this point, but this was the only one I thought looked interesting.