14: Nebula Pashmina Cowl

this was a quick knit - this shawl collared cowl from Alana Dakos. I knit it in Madtosh Pashmina held doubled colour is Nebula - a lovely teal colour.

Before:


After:

70% is the magic number..

I just realized that I knit to about 70% of a project then seem to stall out. I either get stuck, bored, or end up at some fixing point.

Do you see a pattern here? 

Fortunately, the first one, the cardi is kicking right along - I'm at about 70% because the body is done, and i'm working on the sleeves. I've modified it, but that's normal for me. The only thing potentially holding me back on this is that I hope I won't be too bothered by the color change on this beast. The one that my camera detects, that the cardigan's top is more brown gray than the bottom which is a chocolate brown with more chestnut brown highlights. I know, it's not hair, but it's the best description I can give at the moment. I've started the decreases on the sleeve, and have been trying it on as I go. I did knit about 2" longer so that the cardi matches the one I normally wear.

Project 2 - Dahlia Cardi is only at 15% - that's because i'm about 70% done with the chart (there's that "70" number again - hmmmm...) and think I might have to frog back..not sure. my stitches are a bit off on one of the repeats and tempted to keep going, just to be going on this so-called Knit-a-long (KAL). The rest of the pattern is stockinette so it should be peasy. 

Project 3 is a actually a simple shawl..one of the first patterns I ever made "Branching Out" in a cashmere that is to just to dye die for knitting pleasure on my hands. but I put it down..and am working on Project 1 full out now.

Project 4 is Spectra - also stalled at 70%. I knit this when we were at Cornerstone Cafe and it was pretty smoky there. I got tired of having to block and re-block this baby. Now, I'm at 56 wedges of 80 and thinking of binding off earlier rather than later - before I really lose interest (bwaaahaha).
I wound it around my neck to just get an idea if I could bind off and looks like it'll be at least another 6 or 7 wedges before I can do that..just to get the length I want after it coils around my neck. Pretty close though. Could be a 2011 project, after all.

Project 5 - Watershed cardi - this was supposed to be an easy cardi that I just whipped out last January. Hah! right. I ended up totally ignoring the designer's intention with the pattern and doing my own thing. (sometimes my hands become possessed while holding the needles)

Even though my gauge was fine, my row gauge was way off, and I ended up having to do some major math. Then, I misplaced the pattern most of the summer, and had Juanita help me re-do the major math in late August with intentions to fix it all. I frogged back, and was all ready to finish this off by joining the parts to make one long big back and forth, AAAAAND here we go again, realized that the left front had some fudging that I have to go back and fix..so, time to rip this one back, and then, re-join yarn. Neither quick nor easy for me apparently. So, it's somewhat on hold, and not hibernating because that would put it so far down on my project page, I'd forget I was making it.

Project 6 - this was my last december's hot-to-trot pattern that I couldn't wait to cast-on. I was sur e I was going to finish it in the month of December. It's the Kelmscott cardi. A lovely thing knit in a lovely yarn. Blue Sky Alpaca Suri Merino - I'm swooning just thinking about it. sadly, I forgot to read ahead on this one, and missed decreasing at the neck AT THE SAME TIME (the knitter's blasted words I say!)  as I was doing the armhole decreases and had to rip back.

Once I was in the mood and had ripped it back, I went  back to the pattern. It's still hibernating because the designer doesn't say how to adjust the lace as the decreases are eating up the lace pattern.
Also, I think the post-it note I was using to keep track of rows on multiple charts may have fallen off (after a year, it just doesn't keep it's stick), so I have to go back and read my knitting.

I think the neck decreases will anyway be hidden by the shawl collar anyway..so even though I say i'm at 70%, I'm probably really just at 50% because there's this huge shawl collar also in lace that still needs to be knit once the fronts are done. ::sigh:: this one could be a 2012 project.

back to knitting the cardi..oh, and I've cast-on another little neck thing, which I expect (ahem) to be a pretty quick knit. more on that later.

Almost Christmas...

It's almost Christmas..just a few more days. December has really blown by. I've spent a lot of the last few weeks working, and working more working. Overtime, staying late, icky stuff. I'm making good progress on my cardigan. Just lengthening the body, and then, I will do them hem, and knit the button bands. I'm modifying the pattern again, because I'm not sure I like the whole look of it, and I like doing things my own way. This yarn is so pretty.

December 10th-woohoo yarn

I have been spending way too much time on work or at work these last couple of weeks and I'm tired. Yesterday, I was off (finally) and I had a pretty good mail day:

(1) A friend from oregon sent me 3 boxes of Candy Cane Jo-jos (for a pic of the box, go to google images and type in "Candy cane joe joe's"). They're basically like oreos but with a whipped peppermint icing filling instead of a regular white icing in the middle. Wonderful to dip in milk at this time of year..and some tea I'd bought from Harney Tea. The box was mailed Wednesday by UPS to arrive Friday - and amazingly it really arrived friday at my door about 5pm. Very fast service.

(2) The December shipment of the Sweet Georgia Yarn Club Arrived - tough love sock in a lovely deep red, dark brown (which I'm still loving right now), and a greyish-light green/blue color. very nice. Looks like I'll be joining Melissa and Andi again for the yarn club in 2012.

(3) A Sanguine Gryphon order from early November arrived with codex I'd ordered from a special update. I had asked them to mail it all together, and it ended up being delayed because they'd over sold one of the yarns.

Very... lovely.

This is SG Codex in Emma Woodhouse (the signatus lacewing equivalent) - gorgeous - and totally Cold..Dead..Hands - so don't even ask.


It was a very limited update - with only 20 skeins each of about 8 rare colours of codex. I originally tried to put 4 in my cart of Emma, but it was saying sold out, I changed the quantity to 2, and checked out immediately. when I went back to refresh the page, it was all sold out. Stalking at its finest.

The only reason I ended up scoring some of this next one, Devil's Dictionary was that everyone who was stalking was focused on the lovely emma Woodhouse and another one that is basically the faithful beauty red on codex, The Devil's dictionary listing was actually sorted further down alphabetically rather than being one of the first listings.

Devil's Dictionary is the Ruby-tailed Wasp equivalent - Black with bits of teal and ruby.

Unfortunately, not as well-matched as the photo. 2 of the skeins are a deep black, and 2 of the skeins are more of a smoky gray as the silver pastel highlights took over. I had planned to possibly use these for a cardi, but I think I'll have to ponder further given the color differences.

Current knitting - focussed on a cardigan using the sweater club shipment which arrived last month. My magnolia society shipments arrived about a month ago, and I swatched and cast-on quickly - this fall forest cardi. I'm calling it that because the yarn is a lovely rich dark chocolate brown with bits of chestnut brown/red and dark hunter green. The color is called Bitter Root. The base is Madtosh MCN Worsted, a merino-cashmere nylon blend.

As for the project, I'm making good headway on this - having started the decreases below the armhole.


As usual, I'm making a few small mods..knitting in stockinette instead of reverse stockinette, and probably will lengthen at the waist. On the hunt for 7- 1-1/4" buttons which sounds pretty large..and they are large. will see what I find.

Also, about that Dahlia KAL I was doing with Jen, Natalie and Melissa ? somewhat reserved for quiet time when I can sit and focus on the lace pattern. I'm about 5 rows from finishing the end of the lace pattern. Here's a couple of progress photos:

and earlier:

Number 13: Flashing Thunder

Clockwork scarf using Madelinetosh Light in Thunderstorm (Dark gray with brown and blue), and Flashdance (pink with bits of purple).

A better picture to come...

Opulent Raglan Fini

**12 of 12** I've been trying to burn through projects all year, and mostly made shawls. This one I cast-on in April, and it's been languishing waiting for a bind-off of the neck since July. Yarn is Sundara Aran Silky Merino and has been a joy to knit. Used just under 4 skeins for the 36" size on a US 8, and bind-off ribbing on a US7.

Mods: I added one cable repeat in the body for my length, and replaced the flappy sleeve ends with a rolled hem and a repeated cable from the body.

These days...it's true-

I'm becoming a little fixated on..yarn.

...ok, ok- fixated on a lot of yarn..soft, soft yarn.

It all started with a little Codex. It's a BFL-silk blend from Sanguin Gryphon. Soft and big. I made a shiny soft cape-like shawl. Then..a little MCN..that's right Merino Cashmere Nylon. It'll be the death of me.

Can't eat it; can't pay bills with it, but can wear it if I knit really fast, and I'm not knitting quite fast enough these days.

Mostly ravelry sucks my time..

-and I spend a lot of time thinking about yarn and patterns and planning and plotting what I'd like to make. I've rearranged the top of my queue 4 or 5 times this week alone. Dahlia Cardi is still at the top now that Melissa is ready for our KAL. That one I'm planning to make with a nice soft MCN sport-weight..just haven't swatched yet. The skeins are so pretty and squooshy as skeins.

The Beehive, my lys, just brought in Madtosh Merino light - ooh - Cousteau, Flashdance and Thunderstorm. Now, I'm planning a Clockwork shawl with the latter 2, and a cardi with the Cousteau, since I didn't realize it was a single ply superwash merino. ok, now, i'm talking yarn again. Do you see a pattern here ?

Really, I did try to destash a little..I finally decided to part with some yarns that I had taken some time to acquire, over time. Yarns I'd stalked and found and thought about knitting a few whiles ago. A few yarns where I fell in love..hard..but ended up realizing that the color while pretty was just not me.

Finally blocked the Gingko shawl I finished. As others have said, yes, it's all about blocking the leaves in place. Another project that just wanted to be - the yarn is Hazelknits Entice MCN, yep, another MCN.

At least I knit this one, instead of just admiring and plotting.

More Yarn Pr0n

Love Love the Magenta...Dark Gray From Left to Right - Verhext and Verratzt (V&V) Medium in 100%, Igor Light from the WM Store, and V&V Twin Dark: Madtosh MCN 80-10-10 in Cousteau The most accurate picture I could get was when I took a picture with Hazel Knits Hopping Blonde: ...compared with Tree Tops (from the Yarn Club in summer): and Hazel Knits Entice MCN in Jam Session (a lovely Deep Red Pink and Hopping Blonde - and Fudge Can you tell I'm buying more brown lately? I'm definitely attracted to fall colors right now. I have started the Gingko Leaves shawl with the Hopping blonde - 77 rows of stockinette with yarn overs, and I'm about half way..then, onto the lovely leaf edging. The yarn is very soft and yummy. Of course, when something comes in, something must go out, so I'm now updating my destash page with lovelies too.

Ebb and Flow

My knitting mojo is back with a new project - Something old, something new. Both Handmaiden Mini Maiden - merino-silk 50-50. One a lovely magenta, mauve-y, purple-ish brown. Sort of my colors, yet something new and different. The other, an older skein that has been in and out of my stash and destash - a light grayish blue. The pics look like a medium gray, but it is very light. The pattern, Spectra, another Stephen West intarsia pattern. Day 2 and the yarn is very soft, very luxurious to knit with..i'm happy again.

Fall Projects

I bound off the Summer Shaelyn last night - And yes it's true - I cut my hair...

Here's an earlier pic Not sure what I want to knit next. Thinking of a cardi, but still have 1 that is 1/2 stalled to restart, and the neckline on the Opulence pullover to finish. Thinking of joining Melissa and Jen to knit the Dahlia Cardigan in October. Just waiting on another skein of Sanguin Gryphon Bugga in Love Bug to arrive so I have enough yarn. I have 2 skeins already - here is the pic of them. I'm happy to see that the cardi starts with the dahlia flower on the back, so there's hope to actually make this, and it's sport weight which matches the yarn I want to use (for once). Weather's turned, and I'm still hoping for sun and warm weather, but thinking about knitting some birthday/Christmas items.

Summer Shaelyn Soft and Sweet

I had bound off and blocked my westknits shawl and was itching to start something new, so I wound the Handmaiden Mini Maiden in the Aqua Blue-Lime Green colorway. I'm not sure if it's a new colorway or an old one. Could be Nova Scotia, but the green is more of a lime than a medium green, so I'm not sure. This skein is much softer than the Sangria was when I was knitting with it, so that has already made it an enjoyable start. I cast-on yesterday and finished the first repeat

The August Bandwagon - Westknits KAL

Finished off the Westknits Shawl and blocked it - the pashmina is so soft, and the large size is a nice shawl/wrap size. It's being modelled by a colleague of mine who has short hair (nope, didn't cut it just yet). My battery was drained and my camera hot - having inadvertently left my camera on in "take picture mode" for 3 hours in my purse just prior to taking the pics - I had to be quick.





9 of 12.

Another photo courtesy of Bonny:- Taken at sunset early September 2011.

Copper Daybreak Finished in 5 days

This lovely photo taken by Bonny:

Lovely Pashmina...tosh, that is.

Last weekend a friend of mine blew into town..and delivered some yarn from Sock Summit

Fathom, Stovepipe, and Oceanos (L to R) :-

(Ooooooooh....Ahhhhhhhhh)

Lepidoptra, Steam Age, and Nebula (L to R):-


(Mmmmmmmm...lovely)

Steam Age is a light gray with bits of pink and green to match the 2 other colors..
Is it any wonder that I had a hard time deciding between colour combos for the Westknits KAL Shawl ? These were the runners up.

Copper Daybreak

Received these in trade for other yarn in my stash -



the Coppery wanted to be the top of a Daybreak shawl -



and the Green, Frau Totenkinder, matched beautifully.
Finished section 2, and now knitting the border in Section 3.

Fritzi - Lovely frills

The numbers

Never again will I sign up for a yearly challenge for projects..seems like I was doing just fine churning out projects until I signed up for the "12 in 2011" - the challenge to knit 1 a month. Adding the requirement has somehow made me knit slower and raised my standards for knitting so that I've been fussier instead of just knitting and churning the projects out.

I also tried to knit more complex projects this year I think, and be more sweater focused to use up the yarn.

Here were my previous numbers:
2010 - 21 projects
2009 - 18 projects
2008 - 17 projects (counted from April onwards only)

This year, for 2011, I'm barely keeping up - seems like I've been knitting less, or worrying more ?

Current status for projects -
6 of 12 finished
4 that I'm actively working on to finish;
3 on the needles that I haven't worked on in months, and
2 being swatched
About 5 or 6 in my mind that are queued next..and I don't think any of them were on my original queue planned for 2011 with the challenge in mind. Most of the patterns I picked ended up having "issues" of some kind - requiring heavy mods, or where other ravelers decided they weren't happy with the end product, so I ditched them.

7 projects hibernating that are knit mid-stream UFOs - stalled for some reason - misplaced pattern, halfway through and not getting gauge, overknit and need to rip back and determine if I can continue.

One thing I noticed was that this year with the challenge for 12, I tried to focus on finishing more, rather than just casting on projects when I felt like it, and knitting multiple projects.

Heed my words SELF, next year, I'm just knitting on my own without trying to reach some artifical "challenge".

A little vacation

went away 1.5 weeks ago for a little mini-vacation. Five days away..for a bit of sun, and revisiting some old haunts. For the first time ever I said, "Victoria has a great Greek Festival - the food is much better than this." By "this", I meant, the tougher lamb meat from the local "Glendi" Greek Festival in Beaverton, Oregon where Linda suggested we meet. They did have Loukamades which reminded me of...Victoria. Sadly, though Portland was my home for many years, it's starting to tarnish a little.

Mostly this time I noticed -
- Americans are mostly poor - lots of people around, and lots of sales in the shops; but not many people buying...
- Borders stores are closing - the end of an era; even with sales, not many people are buying physical books these days.
- the selection in the stores has become narrower - fewer products available
- Prices for items are generally higher than I've seen - $3.63/gallon of gas; it was $2.50 or so when I left in 2007. Still not as high as Victoria, where a $25 tank of gas (10 gallons) just cost me $53.00, I think it was; most of the difference being tax on tax. On average, it seemed like many products are just as expensive as Victoria, looking only nominally at the numbers, and not including the additional tax we add on here.
- Service at some of my favorite restaurants has slid down down hill and the portions have gotten smaller, the service a little less than what had been.

The US Debt was big news when I was there. Interestingly enough I had always thought that the proportion of expenditure on defense and support of defense was a much larger proportion as compared with the slice for education or health care. Looks like wikipedia has that as 20% of the "budget" for defense, but this figure is DoD only. Interesting reading...

In lighter thoughts..I attended 2011 Sock Summit...a convention for knitting socks.
I took 2 courses - one called the Knitting Sleuth taught by Cat Bordhi. I say taught rather loosely here, as we mostly met and looked at Value Village sweater swatches and tried to reverse engineer them. This was a disappointing class for me because I expected to have some a-ha moments, and mostly, the only a-ha was a reinforcement that I'm not very spatial so I had trouble switching the swatches over in mind to reverse engineer them. Additionally, in hindsight discussion with others who attended her sock class, it sounds like she has lost her sock knitting mojo and her heart wasn't in teaching the classes anymore which is too bad as I had quite enjoyed her previous class.

The second class I attended was much better - Painted Toes by Janel Laidman. It seemed to be quite intimidating to knit fairisle, but I ended up having a thorougly relaxing class applying the fairisle hold-in-both-hands knitting that I've done in the past. The 3-hours passed without incident, and I felt that was a tremendously helpful class, mostly just to be in such a relaxing environment, and to be able to accomplish the formation and knitting of a tiny elfin sock in a short time span.

Ahhh...shopping. I had planned to buy a few skeins of yarn..and I did. A couple of gorgeous skeins from Stricken Smitten like this BFL-Silk Fingering weight called Tealfeathers (Ooooh..Ahhhh...)



and a close-up here..(Mmmmmm...)


and a bit of Serendipity Shimmer Glimmer...



I have a previous skein of the Shimmer Glimmer that I was a lovely green - but this is- even more so.

Also some madtosh Pashmina for my WestKnits Earth and Sky Shawl Knit-along (KAL) in Tart, Saffron and Fig (L to R, respectively), colors A, C, and B.



The Madtosh Pashmina, I picked up at Happy Knits - this was the Sock Summit gift they were handing out - a cool little graph paper booklet, tiny sample of happiness madtosh yarn, tape measure, and a fun little Happy Knits bag.



In addition to getting out in the sun, I also met with old friends for lunch and dinner. It was fun. unfortunately, the time passed quickly. The one thing I did that made me truly homesick for Portland came almost right at the end. I went to the International Rose Test Garden at Washington Park. The roses were still in full bloom (having also had a late late summer), and smelled very sweet. It was wonderful. I wish I was close enough to visit every day.

I took a couple of extra days off to catch up on some sleep, and to visit Butchart's where the roses are still blooming also. I returned to work Thursday to a divisional day which was interactive yet somehow sapped the day's energies. I did get out on a couple of nice walks though. Today was friday, and I'm apparently at training Monday, Tuesday..so extending the mini vacation a little longer before going back to work with bells on wednesday.

Summer Sun

Lovely. Apparently the weather is supposed to turn hot next week - can hardly wait.
We've returned to the gray days..and the AC at work is working overtime to keep us cool like a popsicle inside. someone even came around today to seal up all our windows so they can analyze airflow. nice. purposefully cool. wish it were sunny enough to warrant all of the cold.

I'm back to knitting my opulence cardi. Knit a good portion of the second sleeve tonight and need to orient and knit the cable on the 2nd sleeve, then bind-off. so close. hopefully, this weekend, I'll be done...and just in time for the hot weather.

Calling it good -

I'm tired and not sleeping well these days - I'm calling it good



6 of 12 done, so far.

Come on summer - time to bring the sun back out again.

Black hole for needles and socks

I seem to have a black hole nearby that munches on knitting needles and socks.
I've been keeping a large pillowcase full of single socks, and reunited about 20 pairs of socks two months ago..still have about 10 singles looking thoughtfully for their pairs. these are store-bought socks, mind you, so it's not like they hopped back onto needles and hid someplace, although I do seem to have quite a few missing-in-action needles as well.

According to my rav needle inventory (which I updated in May 2011), I supposedly have quite a few metal circulars in circulation - some I've identified as being assigned to ufos or works in progress. The others, I've simply recorded as"out-unknown", as the only remnants I have is the hang bag it came in.

After taking the weekend to just do things for me..I dug happily into a new project using the regal silk and knit 5", this including a hem and a pleat which was finicky and fussy. Finally, it's sitting flat and it looks beyoo-ti-ful.
Then, today, i tried it on.

WHOA there - too big..even after having swatched and predicted that I was doing ok, somehow, my gauge is off, and it's too big at my hips, and I'm not sure I can fudge it. Somehow when I looked at while I was knitting, it seemed like it would be ok. now, i'm not so sure. So, i'm going to swatch again with a US5.

According to my needle inventory, I am supposed to have 3 or 4 of these needles. guess what ? they're all out, either "out-unknown" or "out on a project". Two that are out and known are: 1. On the Dover Castle Shawl - status: currently stalled because i'm a beginner lace knitter and the pattern is too complex for my tiny brain, so it requires attention, and i'm generally only getting knitting time at knit night, which is not good for good attention.

and 2. is the sweet jazz scarf project which was supposed to be an easy knit, but ended up being super boring between the short rows and the rough-feeling yarn. not inspiring. first time i'm knitting with wm and my attention span is waning.sad.

Since the dover castle shawl could do to go down a needle, and I have plenty of 4s - at least, so my needle inventory says (heh, heh). I'll try that again on a US4, and take back the US5 to swatch the regal silk top again.

Yay a domino effect- Maybe it'll convince some needles to come out of hiding.

July

Canada Post is back on track; hopefully, some good things are coming my way. Not the least of which a prezzy for Andi (who had her birthday last weekend), caught in the mail. I did receive mail on Thursday for the first time - a free FOCUS magazine, and 2 junk mail ads promptly recycled. Still on the look out for my HST ballot which I hope is on its way.

Also, I set aside all the projects needing attention, to focus on knitting something soft - this regal silk I've been saving for some time. The swatch I made blends a deep chocolate brown and a oh so hot fuchsia. Hopefully, the finished top won't be too stripey. I'm loving knitting with this.



Donated some very old unloved yarn to Beehive last weekend for their destash for cash fundraiser for Canada Comforts, and put the $12.40 towards a new skein of Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock in Pomegranate. Hopefully, with the other one I'll find something to knit in future.

Also, continuing destashing on rav and locally and crossing my fingers to take a vacation in July in Portland. oh, i miss you so. The roses of june, and going to the Japanese Garden. .

Shawl Hiatus and Postal insanity

We had a burst of summer weather last weekend and even just yesterday, beautifully sunny on one side of the street, and a big storm cloud moving in from the northwest brought down torrential rain. Victoria weather is just so weird. Still hoping for continued sunny weather above the 60s.

I've been knitting up shawls the past few months in the most satisfying way; but now, I'm stalling. I finally broke into a skein of wollmeise to make "Sweet Jazz" a short-row scarf with eyelets and points. just about bored myself to tears on the short row part. The color is a burgundy-red-plum-purple combo, but the yarn is just not as soft as I've felt or expected. Hopefully, will soften up when I wash if I can get that far.

I also re-started the Matisse Goodale because it's a beautiful bright blue, soft and plain stockinette. Finally joined the raglan shaping and knitting the front now.
I have about 3 or 4 projects at 75-80%..as each one "needs attention". Here's the blue




Also on my mind, the frustrating Canada Post situation. I'm one of the few (perhaps) people who still use the post office to mail packages. I had ordered a birthday present for a friend at the beginning of the month and that is stuck somewhere now. Also have some yarn trades stuck somewhere. Hopefully, the government will pass back to work legislation soon. I understand wanting to have a yearly increase that covers cost of living increases, but it is unreasonable imo during an economic downturn. The whole BC government tightened its belt for 2010-2011 0-0 increases, why shouldn't the feds do the same ?

Shaelyn Revisited

The Shaelyn shawl was bound-off too tightly the first time, so it puckered up. so, I unknit the bind-off and re-bound off using the JSSBO bindoff (Jennie's super stretchy bind-off), and re-blocked the points, although I couldn't find my pins.



and front view



Pics taken at Mile Zero for Knit in Public Day, June 11, 2011. Gorgeous sunny day which coincided with Beacon Drive-in having their 53rd anniversary.

Brass and Steam

On a shawl kick and whipped up the Brass and Steam shawl which is mostly stockinette with a few eyelet rows in Sanguin Gryphon Bugga Great Purple Hairstreak - a lovely royal blue with bits of royal purple and red-purple mixed in. The skein is 412 yards, and it was getting to be a tedious knit, so I knit 3 sections of stockinette, instead of the 2 recommended and bound off with just 60 yds to spare.



Pic taken in direct overcast sunlight at Abkhazi Garden June 5; camera setting was on Natural, so the color looks a bit washed out.
Here it is on my bed:




Started on sleeves of Opulent raglan. It's still looking and feeling wonderful. Still bleeding, but met up with Megan Bartley two weekends ago and during my short stay in Vancouver week before last and she suggested using nailpolish remover to get the red out of my fingernails - go figure - why didn't I think of that ?

Splurged on a skein of yellow - sweet georgia cashluxe fine in saffron for the Gingko Shawl which is in my queue. That could be up next. Guess I just want summer to come. Finally the weather's in the 60s.