The bonbons 2013

The 2013 Valentine Bonbons from Verdant Gryphon - yarn love in a box:

Osmia Avosetta Nest -



Normally, I am not into baby pinks, just hot pinks. This one is a bit more sophisticated with the cream mix.  Lovely.

Weevil Wasp -


A redder version of Peacock Butterfly..no purple. This is going to a new home soon.

Pink-tipped Satyr -


A surprise for me..the lavender is hooking me in..and the pink is very pretty in natural light.

White-Faced Meadowhawk:



The Ultimate jewel in the box...
 and of course, many of VG's fans are clamoring for this to return. Sadly, they are tired of dyeing pink, so we'll have to wait for these to show later.

The silver lining is that I discovered another company who offers almost this exact same colorway -
Dragonfly Fibers - their Save the Ta-Tas colorway is almost exactly the same colors - red pink and purple. Djinni sock is the same as the former SG Skinny Bugga base.

Pas de Valse pics and new yarn

I've knit to the armhole, and tried following the pattern for the armhole decreases, but it's just too loose the way the designer has set it up, in keeping with the loose gauge which she's designed, which I'm not knitting. I've made a firmer fabric with my bugga, so I want a firmer armhole decrease. I'm going to adapt the Larch cardi decreases and then, try to go back and do the top down sleeves as per the pattern.

so far:



The purl part is the extension, which starts at the bottom of the front on both left and front, and gradually increases out as it is knit up.

Left side (facing); right side for wearer:



Right side is looser - I switched how I did the increase for the extension, so this will have to be tightened up at the end.



and some new yarn loves:

Canon Hand Dyes custom self-striping yarn in "The silence often of pure innocence persuades, when speaking fails ~ Winter's Tale" from theamyleeshow



I'm so on a blue kick right now..and still loving pinks and reds too:

VG Samhain in Traveller - this was my winning colorway inspiration last fall. I finally buckled and bought the colorway on VG Traveller which is a superwash merino when it was re-offered in January. The skeins that came were much more orange than I expected, but still beautiful:



and White-Faced Meadowhawk from the VG Valentine Bonbons 2013 box:



so in love with this. Cold. Dead. Hands.

Here's the rest of the box; better pics to come...



As with last year, I have been tracking yardage out and in. Even with the yarny acquisitions, I'm ahead, currently 9K yards out (thanks to some older lys yarns that I've given to a friend to fundraise with).

mid-Feb Bugga knitting

It's mid-February, and I'm one skein into a hopefully 3-skein bugga cardi again - The Pas de Valse.
It's intended to be made with 2" of ease, but I'm knitting the size down, so I can get some negative ease. So far so good. I ended up knitting the extension to 50 stitches on each side. One side looks very clean (right side for cardi wearer), and the left side is pretty ragged. I'm hoping the stitches will relax once I've blocked it at the end. The yarn again is a dream to knit with and a very soothing blue-green. So enjoying this.

Hopefully, pics to come later.