What I've been knitting lately!

First, my lovely husband requested a "long black scarf". He stopped in at the yarn shop while I was working to pick his yarn out, of course the first skein he picked up was a small $20.00 skein of super soft alpaca. (snort). I politely pointed out that I was *not* knitting a $60.00 handwash only scarf for him and shoved two balls of Cascade Superwash into his hands.

I used the popular "Irish Hiking Scarf" pattern, which was super easy to memorize and worked up fairly quickly. I used almost all of both balls of yarn (440 yards!), but he loves it because it's long enough for him to wrap around his neck and still have a nice amount hanging down in front. He's literally worn it daily since I made it, so I'm guessing he's really pleased with it.

The only thing that I don't like is the way the one end flares out -- I think this is the cast on edge. However, I think if I blocked the whole scarf this would be solved. I'm already thinking about what color I want my Irish Hiking Scarf, I know there are two balls of Cascade Superwash in a heather green at the store that would be gorgeous. (Putting on psychic hat....I predict a trip to YarnArts this afternoon to get some heathered green superwash wool.....)

<-- Here's a nice closeup view of the cables --dog hair, flared end and all.

For about the last six months I have been totally entranced by a felted fair isle bag at the shop that was knitted by one of the women who also works there. So, I finally sat down with some wool, some graph paper, a calculator, a pencil and a really big eraser to try to design my own fair isle pattern for a bag. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. There are some things I would have done differently for the shaping, but overall it I think it turned out great. I bought grommets yesterday for the handle to slip through, but apparently I can't count and need to got get another set so that I have enough. The bottom is round so it's a barrel shaped bag, which you're not really seeing in the photo and the top is bunched up where I folded it to dry into the folds that I need to grommet. I'll have to get some sturdy plastic canvas to cut down to size for the bottom to hold the bag up properly.

Well, it's almost lunch time and I have some things I need to finish around the house before I head over to the shop to get me some heathered green Cascade Superwash!