Delphinium

When I went to find some yarn for a new project, I made up my mind to go beyond my usual earth toned palate and venture into something new. And so I came home with delphinium. To me, delphinium sounds better than purple.

Once I finished my last sweater, I wasn't sure what to do next. I even went knitless for several days before I made up my mind and found the right fiber. (The hazards of being a monogamous knitter.)

The project I finally settled on was the Cabled Swing Cardi from The Knitter's Book of Yarn. This has been on my to-do list since I first bought the book. It's almost a knit jacket in style and has the prettiest cabled panel on the front. I went with Berroco's Vintage--a relatively inexpensive, worsted weight acrylic/wool/nylon blend. I had used this yarn once before on the Mondo Cable Cap. It's a nice basic that works beautifully for cables, is super soft, and comes in some great colors. I actually prefer this yarn over Cascade 220, although I'm sure some purists would balk at using anything less than pure wool.

The front piece has gone quickly. I did have to put it aside for a while last night. I had just gotten to the point where I was decreasing and binding off on both sides of the piece--you know, the kind of knitting where you have to pay attention to what you're doing--when we started watching the first episode of Season 2 of Fringe. Something had to go.

This weekend I should get a moment to wind up some other new yarn I found for a scarf project that I want to get going as well. Those were dark days when I didn't have any knitting in the house. It can't happen again. I'll snap a picture and post the details later.

Three Guesses

Bet you can guess where we were this week---at least if you're from the great state of MN.

That's right, Duluth! Home of lighthouses and the great lift bridge. We even broke out record this year and visited three lighthouses in one day. Not bad.

A fall trip to the North Shore is always fun. This year it was even better than usual with temps into the 60's and sunshine every day. The leaves were gorgeous, if not even a little past peak, and the sky and the water were brilliant blue. All that, and we got to visit our son to boot.

Now that we're back home, Mother Nature's show is starting to come our way.

Take Two

It's a miracle I don't hate this sweater, but now that it's done I actually like it. In fact, I actually like it a lot.

This poor yarn started out as another sweater. It tried. It failed. And as much as I hated to do it, I ended up ripping out the entire back piece. I've got to tell you, at that moment I was not in love with this yarn.

Experience told me that if I threw this yarn in a bin and moved on to something else, it would probably sit there forever. Yarn like that only festers. It's hexed.

So, I reminded myself that I liked this yarn well enough at one point to buy it--and pay quite a bit for it to boot. It was going to become a sweater.

There was a time that that meant digging through piles of old patterns, leafing through my library, or running around to yarn stores to fine a substitute pattern, but no more. Ravelry to the rescue! Their new search service gave me plenty of suggestions and within a short time I had found the perfect sweater for my orphaned yarn. I've called it Willow:Take Two.

Now that it's complete, I still have two skeins of this yarn leftover. They are going into the bin. Maybe someday they'll become a pair of mittens or a kid's sweater. I still like the yarn. I'm just not going to push it.