lisa’s place

I got a little spoiled during the club last year.  My priority USPS box was always one of the first to arrive… not so for this shipment.  Totally worth the wait, though.  Wow!

The yarn is Zen Yarn Garden Serenity Sock (colorway: Gold Dynasty).  It is an 80/10/10 blend of superwash merino, cashmere, and nylon.  I really can’t explain to you just how soft and super smooshy this yarn is (just the way I like it).

The color is somewhere in between these two photos, much more golden orange than true orange.  While it isn’t a colorway that that I would buy, I must say I really like it.  It is very fresh and spring-y.

Jen always sends the best goodies with the club shipments, but she absolutely outdid herself this time!  Look at this gorgeous silk project bag from Lantern Moon!  I’m almost afraid to put it into my bag – I don’t want it to get snagged (this will make sense if you’ve ever seem my bag).

The other treats are equally as exciting:  A Queen of Knitting pen, body mousse from Rachel Rene (I think this may become a staple around here), chocolates dusted with gold and silver luster from Gayle’s Chocolates, a really cool calendar magnet with all of the club’s shipping dates, the cutest little sheep note card, a pretty stitch marker from Mama Llama, and special limited edition SOAK.

And… two patterns!  I was super excited about this because the thought of making socks out of this color yarn made me a little sick.  I have seen that horrible red clay in South Carolina and they’d be ruined in a second.  I will definitely be making these socks, though (maybe in a deep blue or red).  Here’s the Ravelry link for the Majestic sock pattern (by Elizabeth Warner).

The other pattern is for a really pretty (and easy) scarf, Alexandria (by Lisa Dykstra).  Ravelry link is not available yet.  I cast on the other night and this thing flies!

It really seems like I had more to say… hmm.  Maybe later.

I ordered some fabric scraps from someplace that I can’t remember.  Unfortunately, I can’t remember when I ordered them, either – sad statement about my stash organization.  I do remember that it was a really good deal and I got a bunch of small pieces of all kinds of different fabrics.  Not having a plan for them, I just tucked them away.

Anyway, I was cleaning up in my office/craft room the other day and found them and decided they’d be perfect for making some little sample quilt blocks.  Having seen some really pretty (and simple looking) whirlygig-type quilt blocks here and there, I thought I’d give it a try.  True to my standard form, I didn’t print out a pattern.  Fortunately for me, it was just a little simple geometry/arithmetic (what quilt block isn’t, right?).

This was really quick and really fun.  I machine quilted around each block and then added little squares and rectangles of quilting here and there.  Far from perfect by normal quilting standards, I still really like it.  It has that homemade look, I think.  It really isn’t quite as wonky as it looks in these pictures.  Something went awry when I took them – could be related to the speed at which I rushed through the task.

Because I had such fun with this first little guy, I had to make a second one.  This one I just sketched out and made up.  It turns out that it looks like a bunch of little windows.  I really like the sashing – I used a linen blend (as suggested by Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson!).  The difference in texture isn’t terribly visible in the photo, but it looks and feels really interesting in better light and in person.

I do think I went a little overboard with the color.  Oh well, these things happen, right?

I wish I’d had a dark solid or pattern for the bird, but no such luck.

I think I’ll be trying another one like this soon – maybe with slightly different proportions.

There would be more (and better) photos, but I am having trouble uploading pictures from Flickr again.

(I can’t believe how terribly Flickr has been acting lately – just awful.  Very frustrating.  I always thought the Pro account was worth it – definitely not feeling the love these days).

Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson! has a really nice discussion of color theory.  She gears the discussion to quilters, but her descriptions apply just as nicely to any application of color.

This would be a more interesting post, but it appears that Flickr is having some big problem(s).  No pics today.

After picking up the Spring ’09 Interweave Knits, I was so excited to find a project for some yarn that has been sitting patiently in its Rubbermaid container just waiting for the perfect pattern.

Leave it to Eunny Jang to come up with a gorgeous slip-stitch scarf in cotton!  Her pattern called for Tahki Cotton Classic, but I had the perfect substitute.  Last year, I stocked up on Classic Elite Premiere when it was on sale at The Yarn Haven.  I love this 50-50 pima cotton/tencel blend – soft and drapey and really nice to knit with.

The colors I purchased weren’t exactly *my* colors, but they are really pretty – and I love how they look together.

The purl rows add such a nice texture.

There are really long floats on the wrong side of the scarf.

It took a while to get the hang of getting them nice and even.  I think they’ll make the back of the scarf look really pretty in its finished form.

This pattern is so much more fun than I’d thought it would be.  Anything that begins with casting on 400 stitches using the knit on method leaves me skeptical, but this is quick and fun and the pattern is very easily memorized.