FO: another Bel Canto

Hey everyone,

Breaking my radio silence at last… with wedding planning I was going a little nuts (more on that later; I sewed my dress, my bridesmaids’ dresses, and knit a shawl! But it all came out fine and we got married and it was great!) Post-wedding, there were all the thank-you notes to write, and I got done with all that, but still felt like hiding my head in the sand for a while. But I thought I’d reemerge and share a semi-recent FO (ha, semi-recent = knit just before Thanksgiving) with the world, and work my way up to posting about the various things I made for the wedding.

I published the Bel Canto Cowl (rav link) in Knitcircus a couple of years ago, but due to their changes, it was no longer available for purchase from their site. Someone on Ravelry requested it, which was the impetus to reknit, rephotograph, and reformat the pattern for sale on my own site, since I couldn’t use the KC photos/pattern layout. So it’s up for sale on Ravelry, in case anyone was looking for it, and here are some pics:

Pattern: Bel Canto Cowl
Yarn Used: Malabrigo Merino Worsted in 37 Lettuce, 1 skein.
Needles used: US 8 (5.0 mm) 16-inch circulars
Date started: November 21, 2012
Date completed: November 23, 2012
Mods/Notes:
The first version of this cowl was knit in Malabrigo Rios, which is superwash, plied, and slightly thinner than the singles/non-superwash Merino Worsted. I like the extra body and cushier fabric of the Merino Worsted version. Also, I think the lighter color shows off cables better, although there’s no denying that rich cobalt blue from the original version is TO DIE FOR.

(Side note: I haven’t cut my hair for probably a year, and it’s longer than it’s been anytime since grade school, so I’ve been having fun with hairdos–although this may look vaguely pixieish, it’s actually precariously pinned Heidi braids that came apart immediately after the photoshoot.)

Closeup:

Two by two, hands of blue

Those guys from Firefly would have looked a lot less sinister if they had worn blue mittens instead of gloves. Like these.

Pattern: Bodhi Mittens, from RiverPoet Designs

Size made: Medium, knit to the length suggested for Small

Yarn used: Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Azul Profundo for the outer mitten and inner cuff (every last bit of one skein); Plymouth Royal Cashmere DK in Sage for the lining, about 90 yards/30 grams (I have about 20 grams left). I bought the Malabrigo at Stitches West in February and the cashmere, from DBNY, has been sitting in my stash for years now, periodically being swatched and frogged–somehow I just never found an application that seemed right for it until now. I think it’s a cabled yarn (multiple two-plies plied together) so it is a bit ropier-looking than you might expect 100% cashmere to be.

Needles used: US size 6/4.0 mm (magic loop for the main mitten, magic loop two at a time for the linings, DPNs for the thumbs of both shell and lining)

Date started: First mitten: June 6. Second mitten: June 16. Linings: June 18.

Date completed: First mitten: June 8. Second mitten: June 18. Linings: June 21.

Mods/Notes: I’ve been admiring this pattern for a bit; it’s not too well known, I think, but I saw a few FOs and KALs going on in the Malabrigo Junkies group, and I had wanted to cast on for these during Malabrigo March but just felt like I couldn’t commit to another WIP at the time. I brought the pattern and yarn with me when I went to Boston, and completed the first mitten there in just a couple of evenings. Worsted weight, non-stranded mittens are so gloriously fast!

I cast on for the size Medium (using a tubular CO) but realized as I neared completion on the hand that I would only need to knit it to the length specified for Small. I probably should have chosen the size Small to knit to begin with, in fact, because the fit was a bit roomy. The underside of the cuff is knit in seed stitch, which looks really sharp but obviously doesn’t draw in at all. So the wrist was outright baggy, and the rest of the hand was a little looser than I wanted.

To remedy this, and counteract the relatively thin and holey single-stranded fabric, I decided to knit linings for the mittens. I thought for a while about how to do it, and I think I got it almost right. I decided to use the rest of the Malabrigo to knit ribbed cuffs for the lining–it seemed perfect to have a combination of ribbing to draw it in tight against my skin, and the thicker worsted weight yarn to fill in as much of the empty space as possible. I was also worried that a) the cashmere would show if I used it to knit the cuff, b) it wouldn’t have as much elasticity as the merino, so the ribbing would sag, and c) it wouldn’t have as much body as the merino, so cold air would get up into the mitten.

I picked up stitches around the wrist edge, right side facing, at a 1 to 1 ratio (destroying my lovely tubular cast-on in the process). This is the only thing I think I might have done differently–if I’d planned ahead I would have done a provisional CO, and otherwise I might have picked up with the WS facing to create a purl ridge on the outside for a turning row, so the cuff could be folded in with a nice sharp fold.

I knit in 1×1 rib until I ran out of the Malabrigo. Serendipitously, this took me exactly to the end of the wrist area/beginning of the palm. I switched to the DK weight cashmere, which I chose because the finished fabric would be thinner and presumably would allow enough ease inside the mitten (particularly the thumb) for me to bend my fingers. Using the same needles, I knit in stockinette (RS facing), following the main pattern exactly for stitch and row counts but omitting the patterning on the back of the hand. After I finished the thumbs, and wove in the ends (not much weaving required–long tails can be hidden between the lining and the shell of the mitten) the lining could be turned inside out and pushed up inside the main mitten.

The mittens are extremely thick, warm, and cozy now. I was concerned at first about the little holes formed at the base of each blossom motif–holes in a mitten are no good for a Wisconsin winter!–but the linings will counteract those nicely. It will feel so luxurious to have these secret cashmere linings and gloriously warm hands to look forward to come winter. I love the way the mittens look, too–the flowery bodhi tree motif on the back of the hands is very pretty.

The pattern was nice to work with–I had no issues with it. It could have been condensed (I didn’t read the pages with the visual explanation of the mitten setup, but I can see how they would be helpful; and the left and right mitten instructions were spelled out line by line, instead of having one set of instructions with just the thumb placement reversed).

If I made these again, I would just go with a normal ribbed cuff instead of the seed stitch, even if I were doing the lining again. Seed stitch is pretty, but it looks really poochy in the wrist area.

The instructions provide a couple of methods for working the twist stitches–I used the k2tog variations (i.e. no cable needle).

Have you ever lined mittens? Do you have any tips for sizing, yarn selection, etc.? The sizing on these was easy since the gauge was the same between the shell and lining, but I’ve always been unsure about how to deal with it for stranded mittens. (Easy answer… gauge swatch for the lining in stockinette… but what a pain in the ass.) I’ve read that angora makes a fantastic lining, and I was thinking of experimenting with Kidsilk Haze or a KSH-type light and fuzzy yarn for a low-bulk lining that would still trap a lot of warm air.

FO: Side Slip Cloche

Hope my mom doesn’t see this before the package arrives with her… but her Mother’s Day present this year was a hat I made a while ago and hadn’t photographed/blogged yet.

Pattern: Side Slip Cloche, by Laura Irwin, from Boutique Knits

Size made: If I remember right, this pattern is one size fits all.

Yarn used: Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Pearl Ten, about 175 yards. Pearl Ten is an interesting muddy gray-brown semi-solid–but not very saturated, so not quite brown, even; I don’t know what to call it. Somewhere between raisin and mink.

Needles used: US 6 / 4.00 mm Knit Picks Options circulars, using a 16″ cable attached to the longer US-based needle tips. The 16″ cable isn’t sold in the US but is available through Knit Pro in Europe. Purchased from eBay.

Date started: June 9, 2009

Date completed: June 11, 2009

Mods/Notes: This is a cute hat with a fin-like double ruffle along the side, intended to have a 20s cloche silhouette; unfortunately, I accidentally knit this a bit longer than the pattern called for, so it’s a bit bigger/poofier than intended, more beret than cloche. It is a cute hat, but I think I’d make it with a brighter color if I make another for myself.

I have seen a lot of these on Ravelry and quite a bit of confusion about how to attach the ruffles. If you decide to make this and are in doubt, I advise carefully studying the diagrams in the pattern and looking at pictures of finished hats on Ravelry before forging onwards.

Pics:

In non-blog world, it has been an eventful couple of weeks since I last posted. I turned 30 in mid-April (had a lovely party with friends, and Beatles Rock Band, and cupcakes); demonstrated drop spindle spinning at the Great Midwestern Alpaca Festival; our good friends Steve and Jeanne came to visit and we had a really nice time with them cooking ramps, rock climbing, and drinking locally brewed beer; unfortunately, during said visit, we also accidentally ran over a deer with our new car (we just got it late last year) so a bit of energy and large amount of cash were expended in taking care of that situation. Things have settled down again a bit, and I’m enjoying the quiet and the nice warm weather we’ve been having lately. It has been so nice out that our knitting group has finally made the transition back to our summer venue, a bar with outside seating (although we were a bit overconfident and ended up having to go inside after it got dark, due to a wind advisory and chilly weather). Since it’s been in the 70s and blissfully sunny lately, it’s hard to believe that we’re still not past Madison’s last frost date for the year! (but I am dutifully holding off on putting tomatoes in the garden until I get the go-ahead from the Wisconsin gardening experts.)

Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter

Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here…

(check out my fabulous peacock tights!)
Here comes the sun

Here comes the sun

And I say

It’s alright

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo (is that the right number of “doo”s?)

To celebrate the arrival of spring and the melting of the icebound lakes in Madison, here is my newest pattern, Here Comes the Sun (link: buy now or go to the hat or scarf Ravelry pages.)

Like Latitude and Longitude, it’s an accessory set, so although I’ve listed the pieces separately in Ravelry, the pattern includes instructions for both the hat and the scarf. The slouchy ribbed beret is knit with one skein of Malabrigo Twist, the reversible wavy scarf with two (both shown in the gorgeous sunny golden semi-solid Sunset). Just the thing to cheer you up on a gray day, or add a pop of color to a drab outfit.

I picked up a skein of Twist a while back from The Knitting Tree after admiring my friend Liz’s slouchy green beret, and resolved to make one of my own. A bit of experimentation and I came up with the hat; after wearing it for a bit and knitting a second one in blue to work out the pattern, I made the matching scarf with yarn I picked up at Stitches West.

With the help of speedy tech editor Dawn Catanzaro, I released the pattern for the Malabrigo March design contest being held on the Malabrigo Junkies forum on Ravelry. The contest is closed for judging now and we should all hear back in a couple of weeks–there were some great contenders, so I doubt I’ll win, but it was a great kick in the ass to have the deadline to work towards for finalizing the pattern, and nice to participate in the community event–I tend to mostly lurk on the boards and seldom participate in actual knitalongs (I’d kind of wanted to do the Bodhi Mittens KAL for MM, but couldn’t commit the time and psychic energy… anyway, it’s in my queue, and looks like a pretty quick knit, so I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually.)

Go check out the other MM design contest patterns if you have a Rav account–my favorites are the Wild Growth mitts and the versatile whatchamacallit accessory called Verse.

Journey to the West

I spent a couple of weeks in February in California, visiting friends and family. In addition to this, I got a chance to meet up with a lot of knitting friends and do a bit of yarn shopping! Possibly even too much yarn shopping, if you can believe it–I got back to Madison with no particular desire to attend this year’s Knit-In (guests of honor: the Mason-Dixon Knitting ladies).

I stopped in at A Verb for Keeping Warm‘s physical space in Berkeley for a couple of hours one afternoon. It is really small, but a beautiful space, jam-packed with gorgeous, natural-dyed fiber. The bin of silk roving! The new camel-silk yarn! Amazing stuff. I had a great time chatting with proprietors Adrienne and Kristine and meeting shop Dachshund Cleo and her best friend, who had come to visit the shop–I forgot his name, but he is another Dachshund, and there is nothing quite like multiple tiny dogs running around a tiny space to lift one’s spirits.

My friend Molly has recently gotten into crochet, much to my delight, and we took a trip to Article Pract in Oakland. It’s a lovely LYS with a great selection (mmm, Fibre Company) and sales room–my only complaint is that it’s too dark to see the yarns very well.

I met up with Prachi from Adventures of a Desi Knitter and Kristen from Knitting Kninja at Stash Yarns in Berkeley. I had met Prachi before, when she came to Madison for a conference last year, but it was my first time meeting Kristen in person. It was great seeing Prachi again and meeting Kristen for the first time and chatting with them both–first over a gleaming pile of MadTosh sock yarn (a new shipment had just come in and GOOD LORD is this stuff gorgeous, the pictures online are good but don’t do it justice!) and then over warm drinks at the Starbucks next door. It was a cold and rainy day–nothing better than warm drinks and yarn-ogling in good company.

Oh, and there was a little thing called Stitches West. I accidentally (really accidentally!) timed my visit so I’d be there during Stitches. My mom and stepdad live about 15 minutes from the venue, so I girded my loins and headed out there Friday morning. I have a good amount of practice going to wool festivals by now, but it was really utterly overwhelming. From the Midwestern festivals I’ve been to, I’m used to a more low-key mixture of yarn and livestock, but this was gigantic, completely indoors, and with no alpacas to mix it up. The experience had more in common with E3 than with Wisconsin Sheep and Wool. I waited in line for about 15 minutes to even buy my ticket and get into the expo, and then I kept walking and walking and it kept going and going. I felt incapable of buying anything for the first two hours I was there–finally developed a game plan and went back for a few things.

I got in trouble because I completely missed the sign at the front about not taking photos. Oops. This is the only photo I have that was taken with permission, and I deleted the rest:

…ah, Malabrigo. Being a Malabrigo Junkie, I walked away with a free sample of navy blue Dos, and also purchased some Twist that will be making an appearance here soon–by the end of the month, with any luck.

The Dos:

I had lunch that day with Hilary from The Yarniad . Hilary works nearby, so she couldn’t come yarn shopping with me, but was able to take off her lunch hour to meet up. I spotted multiple Citrons up as samples on the show floor and was excited to tell her where to look out for them!

And last but not least, I met up with my favorite podcasters, Nicole and Jenny from Stash and Burn, and Jenny’s sister Alma. We didn’t get to talk for too long in the madness of the show floor, but it was nice to at least meet them in person, and check out their Stitches haul. Nicole and John welcomed a new member to their family shortly thereafter and Nicole said the long walk at Stitches was probably what got things started…

Highlights of Stitches West:

• yarn made of 18 karat gold!
• 15% off qiviut
• utterly gorgeous Toots Leblanc angora merino
• a big pile of Madtosh Pashmina at the Imagiknit booth
• tons of beautiful Jenkins Turkish spindles at the Carolina Homespun booth

So, at Stitches, aside from the Malabrigo I mentioned before, I also bought this baby alpaca/silk/cashmere blend yarn, 400 yards fingering weight for $28, from Pigeonroof Studios. The color is Greenstone and it is luscious.

And that was the fibery portion of my trip to California.

Now I’m back to the Planet of the Apes Madison, where Spring is finally springing–I took this photo a few days ago, but the ice has since melted too much to go out on the lakes anymore:

Oh, and I’ve just put up a pattern on Ravelry that I’m really excited about–you can just about spot the hat and cowl I’m wearing in the photo above–but will save the post about it for later–but right now I have to get off the computer and start baking some pies. I’m having a Pi Day party (it’s 3/14 today!) Blueberry, Key lime, and savory corn pies. Yum.

Tyro!

Sorry about the silence for a while there–I really needed that Thanksgiving break! I was drowning in work, and a week or two spent working into the wee hours of the morning paid off in allowing me to spend the long Thanksgiving weekend relatively work-free and relaxed.

On Thanksgiving day, we drove about 5 hours south to Rahul’s aunt and uncle’s house in rural central Illinois, and his parents drove up from Missouri to meet us there.  It’s deep in America’s flat, corn-filled heartland, the type of area where they show GM seed corn ads on prime time TV and you can listen to radio call-in shows dedicated to farm equipment classifieds (RFD Trading Post)–fascinating for an urban Californian! “Uh, hello, I’m interested in buying some billy goats, but I only want billy goats without horns. No horns. So if you have a billy goat with no horns, please call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX.” “I got some farm fresh eggs for sale. XXX-XXX-XXXX. Thanks.”

We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner–turkey with all the fixings–but some yummy Indian food the other days, too: tandoori chicken, shrimp curry, biryani, a coconut-rice vermicelli dish called shevia (the last half of the word should be pronounced in a sort of slurry of vowels and approximants, sort of like Ozzy Osborne in that Samsung commercial).

We went shopping in Springfield on Black Friday and the day after. I feel sort of ashamed to admit that I had any part of this celebration of gluttonous American consumerism, but we were fairly practical, buying useful, cold-weather things on sale like chapstick and flannel sheets and a fake-down comforter, instead of silly things like Bacon-Waves and talking football-shaped candy dishes. We did buy a semi-frivolous Roomba at a doorbuster sale but found upon opening it that it didn’t have all the features we wanted: you have to manually start it–it can’t be set up to run automatically, and it doesn’t “go home” to charge afterwards, you just have to stumble over it wherever it happened to stop vacuuming and take it back to recharge. So we returned it, and my dreams of an amazing robot maid will have to be deferred. (An aside: I think iRobot is a terrible name for a robot company, don’t you?)

We did see some good old-fashioned Black Friday douchebaggery: a woman asked Rahul to hold her place in line for a sec when we first lined up, then she came back 45 minutes later, when we were about 5 people from the front of the line, and said “Oh, there you are! Thanks for holding my place” and shamelessly ducked back into line, completely ignoring her mortified husband telling her they had to go to the end of the line. Amazingly, aside from some complaining from us, a manager, and the people directly behind her, there were essentially no consequences for her jerkface behavior: she got to check out pretty much right away. But that was the biggest drama we saw, no fistfights over Wiis or anything like that.

Aside from that, we spent lots of time vegetating and hanging out with Rahul’s family. We watched lots and lots and lots of news about Mumbai, and I saw The Godfather for the first time, and the The Last King of Scotland. Both fantastic, of course.

Plus, at the same time, I did lots and lots of knitting! I cast on for Eastlake just before we left, and knit for a total of 20+ hours over the course of 4 days during car rides and while we watched movies or TV. I was trying desperately to meet my NaKniSweMo goal of finishing Flicca plus making one more sweater during the month of November, but fell short last night, only getting a few inches into the sleeves before calling it quits for the night. Still, I made good progress, and the sweater is going to be cushy and delicious once I’m done–I’m making it in a velvety taupe worsted-weight cashmere from School Products (via Klosekraft’s destash sale), and knitting as much of it as possible in the round. The leaf motif is so addictive I think I might even make an Eastscarf.

Last but not least, I finished the Malabrigo socks that were giving me such fits before, and wrote up the pattern! It’s available as a free download, with the caveat that this is a sock pattern by a sock moron and thus is not at all guaranteed to be any good. Here they are, the Tyro Socks, knit in the lovely Indiecita colorway:

Toe-up socks written for beginners, using the yarn-over short-row toe and heel described by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts in Simple Socks: Plain and Fancy (photo tutorial included in the pattern, for sock morons like me), and a simple, softly curving lace pattern mirrored on the left and right feet. The lace pattern is easy to read and to memorize, and it’s mostly stockinette (every other row is plain knit stitches).

You may notice some visual similarities to other patterns: the Pomatomus socks and Spirogyra mitts in particular. (There may be others, too, but those are the only ones I know of.) However, despite the similarities, which only occurred to me after I’d started, I can assure you that these socks were designed the old-fashioned way, from scratch, futzing around with a stitch dictionary and doing some swatching and math to mirror the stitch pattern and make it work with the stitch count. Namely, the parent stitch pattern is the Overlapping Waves pattern in The Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns.

This is a pattern of many knitting milestones for me. First pair of socks, first sock pattern, first short-row toe, and last but not least, first semi-creepy Flickr group request for photos of my feet. Ha! I’d read all kinds of tempest-in-a-teapot discussions on Ravelry about foot fetishists lurking on knitting websites to ogle sock FO photos, but this was the first direct encounter I’d had with them.

Loquatlicious

The latest and greatest on the Loquat shawl:

I’m having some doubt on the edging pattern. I was thinking of using this one (Classic Bead Edging from Barbara Walker), with that top garter strip changed to faggoting to match the pattern in the main part of the shawl, but maybe it looks too bumpy, too open/uneven in contrast to the stockinette triangles in the Honeybee lace. The swatch below has been blocked, by the way. What do you think? The Wave Edging used in the Print o’ the Wave stole might be nice–it’s one of my favorite edgings of all–but I was worrying that it might be too small-scale to work with this shawl and might not be stretchy enough to bind off the faggoting stitches, which are very wide. I’ll make a swatch tonight if I have time… otherwise, BW vol.2 is coming with me on my trip to Toledo.

Perhaps I shouldn’t do the sideways edging, but extend the pattern downwards (I was thinking of using a variation on the Razor Shell pattern in order to make scallops). Full of doubt now, as that part of the shawl gets closer…

Anyway, it’s a good 42 inches across the top, now, stretched out. I knit a bunch on it last night and finished Fitcher’s Brides (it’s based on the Bluebeard fairy tale, so perhaps was not a great book to be reading as I was knitting a wedding shawl… I will have to find a “happily ever after” book to read to counteract it. Bridget Jones’s Diary, maybe.)

It actually goes over the shoulders now (I will have more to say later about the cloud dress you can see me wearing):

Here are details of the mini-cables leading into the honeybee lace at the 4 increase points on the shawl. They twist in opposite directions on the two sides of the shawl.

Stretched out, the shawl reminds me of a big, yellow, pretty, lacy, manta ray:

Look at the stars, see how they shine for you

Here’s a little sneak peek at the current progress of the YELLOW! wedding shawl I’m making for my best friend. I could use some encouragement that yes, it looks pretty and is worth continuing on with… it’s a bit of a beast to work, as there is lace patterning on every row and due to the little minicable-and-lace increase pattern leading into each repeat of the honeybee-and-faggoting pattern, the chart is 46 rows long. Still, each individual bit of it is pretty intuitive, as long as I don’t get mixed up about which part of the pattern I’m working.

It’s a top-down triangle and I’ll finish it with a sideways knitted-on edging. I’m really loving the color and the yarn.

Roses are violet

OK, the burn mark on our linoleum is still there (now covered by a throw rug), and my leg still hurts, but my mental state today is much better than it was yesterday. The sun is out (this is how deep the flooding downtown was yesterday after the thunderstorm), knitting night is tonight, Rahul and I might go see a play at the fresh-baked cookie store after that. And, as I mentioned, I have some good knitterly things to think about.

Here’s one of the nice things. When I finished the Hemlock Ring, I cast on for a new hat as a reward for myself. It’s no kind of weather for wool berets right now, but who cares? It’s pretty! And it was fun and quick to make.

Pattern:Rose Red, by Ysolda Teague. chemgrrl, who was done with hers, traded the pattern to me for a skein of Rowan Calmer.
Size made: Small, but using a larger gauge. I can’t tell you what the gauge was, because I was lazy and fudged it.
Finished dimensions: I was lucky–it fits! I blocked it over a dinner plate, and it came out to 11 inches in diameter with the hat lying flat, with a band size of about 20 inches.
Yarn used: Malabrigo Merino Worsted from a Whitknits sale, in Violetas, about 90 grams (i.e. just under 1 skein, or about 195 yards).
Needles used: US size 8/5.0 mm bamboo DPNs to start the hat (it’s knit from the top down), and US size 7/4.5 mm 16-inch Boye Needlemasters for the rest
Date started: June 2, 2008
Date finished: June 3, 2008
Mods: Aside from the gauge modifications, none that I can think of.
Notes: My Ravelry page for this project is here. I loved this pattern. It’s gorgeous and intricate, fast and pretty easy to knit, and very well-written and easy to follow (I used the written directions, which I think to many knitters is akin to saying you like white wine better than red at a gathering of oenophiles–sort of crass, indicating a not-very-advanced palate.)

I finished the hat in just two days, after some marathon TV knitting (season openers of Bones and House; Barack Obama’s speech accepting the presumptive nomination; two nights of Daily Show and Colbert Report).

I usually cable without a cable needle, but this time, because of the way the 7-stitch cable is worked, I had to use a cable needle. It was fiddly and annoying, but I think it improved the look of my cables–they’re usually sloppy around the edges, but looked pretty tight this time. I used a size 6 DPN instead of one of the special cable needles you can buy.

I actually have some red DK-weight angora blend in the stash, and after making Rusted Root I was thinking I should add more red to my wardrobe this winter, so I think I might make another one of these hats in fluffy red DK weight, exactly like Ysolda’s original. Or maybe not. I’m not crazy about the way the cabled band looks, although I really appreciate the tidy, knitterly design aesthetics of continuing those cables all the way down the band. It’s just that somehow I feel like the hat looks a bit too… chef-like? and I suspect I might prefer the look of a ribbed band instead.

I think the recommended lighter weight yarn would also be a good idea. Malabrigo on 7s, even well-blocked, came out slightly too sturdy and the hat doesn’t drape well. For best effect, I think it should be really floppy. Also, I can’t quite decide how I feel about this semi-solid colorway–is it a distraction, or does it add to the charm and intricate look of the pattern? (This is not to say I don’t totally love the hat–I really do. This is all nitpicking.)

Anyway–on to the pictures. It’s really hard to take a picture of the back of your own head.

The hat lying flat.

The back of my head.

Plated up for blocking. The underside and band:

The flowery top, with cute li’l i-cord nubbin:

Me looking vaguely chef-like, or possibly medieval, from the front.

So–some other good things.

• The Rainey Sisters alerted me to the fact that Niebling’s legendary Lyra doily is now available for $7 plus $4.50 shipping/handling through Lacis. It used to be rare and go for a LOT more on eBay–there are two copies up right now, the highest one, with 19 bids, currently priced at $81 plus $5.90 shipping. And I mean copy–it says you get photocopies of the pattern, not even originals. It must be a cash cow for the seller, since they can make infinite copies for 10 cents and sell them for $81+. That’s really kind of messed up.
• You can now purchase a couple of my patterns through Sandra Singh. She posted them today and has sold a copy of The Water is Wide already!
• Robynn sent me some freakin’ amazing yarn. Just look at how gorgeous this is.Handmaiden Camelspin, in Nova Scotia, glowing green and blue–this stuff has the sheen of Sea Silk but is much softer, probably the softest yarn I’ve ever felt, softer than the skein of cashmere I have in my purse:
  
  
  

  Artyarns Beaded Rhapsody in color 159, gleaming gold and silver:
  
  

Are those not just insanely beautiful? The timing was good; it made my day if not my week, and on balance more than made up for my Very Bad Day yesterday–thank you so much, Robynn.

Malabrigo up the wazoo!

So I just posted about the YELLOW Malabrigo lace I bought, but that’s not the end of it, not by any means.

I just got the prizes from winning Best Original Design for Malabrigo March for Prickle in the mail yesterday. They are lovely!

First of all–get an eyeful of the giant pile o’ prize yarn at the contest moderator’s blog. Wow. Aren’t those all just amazingly gorgeous?

Two of the skeins from that giant pile are now mine!

A skein of merino worsted in Hongos, a pink and brown variegated colorway:

And a skein of their brand-new superwash sock yarn, in “Test Color,” a lovely light blue with a subtle mixture of turquoise and gray shades.

Here, take a closer look.

Yum! It’s soft and pretty, but I can’t tell you much more than that yet–I haven’t skeined it up or swatched with it yet.

Now, if you’re my mom, don’t read any further! Everyone else, go ahead. There’s more Malabrigo goodness behind the jump.