Recently in KSH Stole Category

The green sweater. I frogged. I wasn't feelin' the love for it, you know. Made me look like a long-armed fuzzy bear. I'm a bit on the skinny side, so if a sweater can make me look like a long-armed fuzzy bear, it must be bad. It was. Bye-bye, green sweater. Hello, cute little fuzzy green yarn cakes. I'm on a pattern search now.

The lace stole. I frogged. I have to thank Lyn, who frogged her pink Criss Cross (I think it's from Vogue Knitting). These two projects have been gathering dust in the closet and everytime I opened it to take out needles, or yarn, or my knitting bag, I got a twinge of pain. Agh, the pain. So, I frogged. Also, do you know that frogging mohair sucks? It wasn't enough that I frogged the fluffy green sweater (mohair and wool), I had to frog the lace stole (mohair and silk) right after. I never got a good rhythm with the pattern, which was turning out to be incredibly boring. It was all good, though, the Argentinian wine helped.

I joined the Summer of Lace knitalong. I gotta do this KSH shawl for my grammy (I'm thinking the good old standby Feather and Fan) and I gotta do Kiri as well. We shall see...

A Post-it mosaic of Elvis. He he. Nothing to get the creative juices flowing! (Also good for team bonding, etc. etc.)

This reminds me of the time we did a treasure hunt at work. One of the IT guys had a pair of magnets that made a clicking sound when he tossed them in the air (something about the poles attracting and repelling each other). He did it far too often and incurred the wrath of one of the designers. The IT guy made the mistake of leaving the magnets one day so we "kidnapped" one of them, made a ransom note (photo of blindfolded magnet included), and left it on the foosball table demanding cold hard cash for its safe return. When he didn't pay up, he was sent on a treasure hunt that took him to the very bottom of the parking structure to the CEO's conference room to the outdoor landscaping. It took the better part of an hour and 15 clues, and it was sooo much fun to watch the entire IT department running around! I wish we could come up with something like that again.

Cute Link Alert! Witold Reidel's The Bear travel photo series.

Saturday noon found 8 knitbloggers at Jerry's Deli in Studio City: Lauren, Laura and Jen, Stacey, Lori, Allison, me, and Kris. Our waitress Bridgette had a line of cameras to go through, so you'll probably find a sharper picture on one of the other ladies' blogs.

Lauren, Laura, and Jen. The last time I saw them was at Fab Fiber Fest in August last year.

Stacey, Lori, Allison and Kris. Allison and Kris are wearing the same cabled hoodie.

There was much talk and way too much food. Later on we went to La Knitterie Parisienne, which was crammed with yarn (Fiesta Yarns' droolworthy Water Mark) and not a price tag in sight. Hmm. Suffice it to say that Lori and I dropped by Wildfiber on the way home to satisfy our yarn cravings.

Here's an extra picture of Lauren and Lori, the difference between them being 14.5 inches, or the total length of knitting I've made on my grandma's Kidsilk Haze Stole. They're now on a nice pair of Bryspuns, which I'm told holds the fluffuzz quite well.

Reading: The Final Solution by Michael Chabon. Surprisingly, BF picked this out for me. It's not on my reading list but he's listened to me rave on about Kavalier and Clay and figured this would be good as well. I have to recommend my last read, The Shadow of the Wind (check my list), because it is very, very good. I'll be nominating this for Knit One Read Too's May book.

First, some stash enhancement courtesy of Elizabeth, who was a great Secret Pal. She is *the* enabler for my sampling all the yummy yarns out there. I got some more of the Varaluguai 100% virgin wool, 2 balls of Mission Falls' 1824 Cotton, a skein of oh-so-pettable Classic Elite Lush, and a big fat skein of Noro Iro! I was grinning like the Cheshire Cat on acid when I opened the package. The Mission Falls cotton will be made into a striped Kittyville or Devil hat for our friends' little one, due to arrive in December. The Varaluguai and Lush will marinate in The Stash for a while. BF liked the Noro so I will reserve that for him. Not a hat (I've knit enough of those for him), possibly a scarf? Any ideas? Big thanks and hugs to Elizabeth, you are *truly* awesome.

My kingdom for a photo studio. In an alternate life I would've been a photographer, but let's not go into career choices. The scarf is about 48" long at this point and I think I'll stop at 72". It's warm; those ribs and cables do a good job of trapping in air. I have to block this, as you can see the garter stitch is shorter than the ribs and is pulling everything in.

Don't ask me how many stitches I've dropped (grrr). I have renewed respect for all the knitters (take Anita and Kate, for example) who willingly take KSH and make beautiful wispy things out of it. See my yarn donut? I compared it to the other donut with its tag still on. Same exact size. Heaven help me, Gran should have this by next Christmas.

And how are YOUR winter knits coming along? :-)