Swag

Victorian Romantic Tarot

So OK, the muses have abandoned me - even Melpomene, for which one must be appropriately grateful - and so I have been very, very quiet.

But I know you are as nosey curious as me, so you'll be wanting to know what I received for my birthday last week; and if you're a tarot person, look away now, because nobody gave me anything to do with tarot at all. I know, right ?

But, my other obsession has been generously catered for, as you can see below, although my Twins appear to have swapped roles ...

My Eviller Twin gifted me with the pattern for the Blackberry Cabled Cardigan, and Belo gave me cash to buy yarn with, so I bought a cardigan's worth of Stylecraft Life DK in Rose (even though the Eviller Twin curls her lip at pink as being suitable only for little girls up to the age of six ... which is not me). But I think it will look lovely, and the lighter color will show the pattern to better advantage:

Belo's generosity stretched to these as well:

400m of 'Parakeet 17' Jawoll Magic Degrade

600m of 100% 4 ply lambswool in 'sky blue'

And somehow I managed to find a Raveller who was destashing some marvellous Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace in 'Gold' for the absolutely bargain irresistible price of only £10 (approx.$15) ! So that was my birthday present to myself ....

So that's the yarn part of my birthday swag, and I hope you'll notice my adventurousness in terms of colors chosen ... not my usual kind of palette at all, I think.

Good Twin obviously revelled in being more evil, as see what she has sent to me:

 

It is very pretty, and is on my bedside table to be dwelled on before sleep. But dwelled on in a kind of theoretical, distanced way. You know, like, wow that's totes amazing and I will never make anything from this book in this lifetime or any other but I really enjoy the eye candy. But in a parallel universe somewhere there is a Me that has already completed at least one of these patterns. Probably the same universe in which there is a Me that is six foot tall who does not have panic attacks when getting into a car.

The SIL who is thoughtfully providing a baby in August just for me to knit some pretty things for, sent me this book. I am not saying that there is any kind of point or agenda, oh no. But I used to think she was a gentle, kind person.

And therefore it is also directly her fault that I spent the Amazon vouchers sent by my lovely MIL on a book of Baby Afghan patterns. 

Crochet patterns, because we like a laugh realistic goal, don't we ?

I might have more to say later this week: but you'll never know unless you come back to see, will you ?

WIP Wednesday 98: Yarn Feast

Vision Quest Tarot

So we're talking accumulation as we have gone from mojo-less without any ideas, to having a promising queue and too many ideas. Famine to feast. But we do not repine, as we are a glutton. Have you noticed, the royal 'we' gives us some unique grammatical and/or syntax issues ? Oh well. You'll have to live with it.

Having sorted out the snarls from winding, I very quickly got to the knotted openwork section of the 'Summer Flies' shawl, I ripped it all out and started over on 5mm needles, as the yarn seems more like a sport/DK than a 4ply/fingering, and was coming out a little ... thick ... on the 4mm needles. I am loving the soft, silky feel and summery color:

I have modified it already by adding an extra set of eyelets and another butterfly section following thetanull's notes, to make the shawl bigger. It's a straightforward knit that one can manage without errors even during the excitement of the England - Ukraine match when one is marvelling at the ineptness of Wayne Rooney and his several goal misses.

And in the post I have received as a super-late birthday treat from my Evil Twin and my Good Twin, this:

A beautiful crimson Aran-weight silk and lambswool chenille yarn. There is enough for a sweater for me: my idea being, that as they gifted it to me, that will be pressure to use the yarn, and I have not made anything for myself at all yet, and then also when I wear the sweater, I will think of them.

And in pursuit of my goal of making the four shawls for important ladies ( two down, two to go) I have found the appropriate yarn for the remaining two; I already knew that for one I needed this olive Crazy Zauberball:

But I was having trouble finding what I wanted for the other shawl, until I visited the Addicted2Knitting website, which stocks some unusual Zauberball colorways that I have not found elsewhere; it was here that I found the colorway 'Cloud 7', which is just right:

So yes, I am sitting in the sunshine gloating over my stash and my plans for it: a most enjoyable feeling, let me tell you. You can find other gloatees over at Tami's Amis ....