Wool in the Desert

Why, you might ask, is Nancy standing in 70-degree sunshine, surrounded by cacti, wearing a wool scarf? Because she is modeling her new scarf.

She purchased the brown-ish yarn (136 yards) from Unique Designs by Kathy; I paired it with two skeins of Jo Sharp DK in a color called Orchard. The result is a brioche stitch scarf with random stripes, 8 inches wide by 64 inches long.

Now she needs some cold weather to provide a proper environment for her scarf.

A Winter Hat

My gift in the Puyallup Knitting Guild holiday gift exchange was this pattern and yarn for a winter hat. Twined knitting. Not my favorite type of knitting, with all of the twisting and untwisting, but the hat and yarn were so pretty that I was willing to give it a go. That, and Joyce egged me on: "You can do this, you can do this."

The timing was excellent because we have had a cold winter and this is a snuggly, soft, warm hat with earflaps. I really like this hat, and I even warmed up (a little bit) to twined knitting.

The details:

• Lisa Ellis Designs Basic Twined Ski Hat
• Yarn: Crystal Palace Taos, 100 percent wool, 1 skein (128 yards), color 02 Gila Bend; trim is Cascade 220 in a sage green from stash
  
• Needles: US6
• Finished size: Adult

Jeanne's Shawl

My friend Jeanne thought that her 80-something-year-0ld mother would enjoy having a shawl. Seemed like a good idea to me.

Eventually, Jeanne selected a Faroese shawl because the shaping would stay on her mother's shoulders better than a triangle or a rectangle. Then she choose the Alka pattern from Myrna Stahman's book on Faroese shawls and seaman's scarves.

The yarn presented a challenge: soft, not too heavy, not too light, no wool, machine wash and dry. With the help of Ravelry's yarn index, I found that Knit Picks CotLin, a DK-weight cotton-linen blend, met my requirements. Jeanne chose the color Lantana.

Knitting on US7 needles, I used about nine skeins, 1,100 yards. I used the leftover yarn to make a few face cloths for Jeanne.

Jeanne gave the shawl to her mother for Christmas and it was a hit. Her mom seemed quite taken with the idea that someone would hand-knit a shawl just for her. She joyfully modeled it before all of her friends and relatives (that's not her in the photo, that's me).

Sun Break

Our escape to Tucson to visit friends gave us a much-needed break from winter. Although it rained a few days, we generally enjoyed a week of warm, sunny days and desert life.

One of our excursions took us to Kathy and her critters. My friend Nancy (below) had sent me some of Kathy's wonderful hand-spun, hand-dyed yarns, so it was a pleasure to meet Kathy and some of her animals.