is it winter yet?

I am so ready for summer to be over. The more scarves I knit the faster fall will hit, right?



I knit this for my mother's 70th (!) birthday. The argosy scarf is quickly becoming my "gift to make" of choice. It's detailed enough to look impressive, yet once you memorize the pattern it goes up pretty quickly. --which is not to say that there weren't several rounds of serious "unknitting" involved mind you, but I will spare you those frustrations...



I'd had a couple of books and gift ideas thrown together for my mother (she's easy--knitting books!), but then when it dawned on me that it was actually her 70th, I decided to knit her something. Plus the woman NEVER knits anything for herself. EVER. Nor would she ever do something like this for herself, or choose this kind of yarn. So, I'm happy to report that she was quite chuffed with it, which makes me very, very happy. A knitter appreciates a knitted gift so much more than a non-knitter, I think.

It took me two evenings of solid knitting and just over two balls of what is currently my favourite yarn: Lang Silk Dream. I think the colour was called Rust. Some of you may remember that I knit my first clapotis in a cranberry version of this wool and I definitely got a lot of wear out of it. I think of it as the poor man's version of the Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb that the clapotis pattern called for originally. But who can afford that? And don't get me wrong...Silk Dream is still expenssive, but is far more palatable than the Lion and Lamb ---which I really can't get around these parts anyway. Silk Dream is 50% merino and 50% silk. I love it. My only complaint is that there aren't more colours available.

And I have to say that on a second knitting of this scarf (you can see the first one again here ) there were far fewer mistakes on my part.

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On the first one you can tell that the rows of YO's are lookin' a little wonky in spots, not to mention, that for a stretch the WS is visible on the RS, and I basically didn't notice until the very end, so I couldn't be bothered to go back and fix any of it. Anyway, this pattern is also all about the blocking. Particularly with a fiber that has so much silk in it, it really comes out looking smooth and fabulous in the end.

I think she was happy with her prezzies, even though there's definitely a certain uh "winter" feel to all of it! (Again me summoning the anti-humidity gods, because I am read-y!)

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And I may have to steal that "holiday knits" book back because I really want to try my hand at some colour work and the little cosmetics bag that's in there might be a good way to start:

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cute, non?

There's a new sweater that's consuming much of my evenings of late, but I'll update more on that later and the joys of Phildar! I think I've blathered on enough for now.