Aven, this picture is for you! It's not the swatch but it does show a bit more of the sparkle of the yarn than the yarn store site does. Just imagine the sparkle increased by another 50% and you might be closer to the actual glitter of this yarn which is positively gorgeous! It's a very very soft yarn which is suprising. More so than you would think with all the metallic thread in the yarn.

Ruby, I'll post pictures of the dress either when it's finished or during the process of making it... I'm not sure yet. I still need to find the right fabric for it. I'm looking for silk. Can't be dupoini or charmuse though both would be a good weight but they aren't period to the 12th century. :( It's darned hard finding the right fabric in a color other than white, beige or baby poo brown. hehe

Allison, thank you for the compliment. The scarf turned out with the cable showing up very nicely.

Okay... back to knitting on the purple and silver top!

Don't you just love finishing a project? Especially when it's a present and you finish it way before it's needed? Now, I just have to remember where I put it so I won't forget it come MidWinter. hehehe

Actually, I'll probably leave it on the mannequin until I need it for working on the dress that I really need to get my hiney in gear and make for our MidWinter Feast. 12th Century British/French is the theme.

Now, I just need to finish a few of my unfinished projects such as the teal tank and the red checkerboard top and the purple/silver wrap top. The latter is what I'm currently working on and I really just have the ends to weave in on the Teal Tank before I sew the seams together and do the neck and arm hole edging. That probably will be the next to be finished... though..... hehehehehe

I did buy a ball of a new yarn, today. My LYS got it in recently and it's another metallic yarn. Very soft feeling. I bough one ball to bring home and work a few swatches to see if it actually works out to a soft fabric and to see which gauge that I like.

The new yarn is Crystal Palace Soiree and I brought home the black/sliver one. It also comes in black/gold, silver and gold.

I want to make a rather simple pattern. Mindless knitting. Deep V-neck, short sleeved top.

How are everyone else's projects going?

I seem to be zooming right along with my DNA scarf. I've finished the neck ribbing and am just 6 rows shy of finishing the first repeat of the downward side.

I'm not a chart reader when it comes to cables so I actually sat at my computer and typed in the entire pattern row by row using terms I'm more familiar with such as c2f for put two stitches on the cable needle and hold forward, k2cn = knit the two stitches from the cable needle, etc. The mini cable also is worked into the written directions while the seed stitch edging is easy enough to know where you are without having to type that out.

Once this is done, my next project will be to finish the small Kumihimo braid that I'll be using to lace my 12th century dress... well... it will once the dress is made. I have a swatch of a 100% silk fabric being sent to me that I'm hoping will be the right weight for a 2 layer Winter dress. If it doesn't work out, there is another silk fabric called Spun Silk that I could use but it's pretty darned light weight for a Winter dress. HHuummm. Keep your fingers and toes crossed that the new fabric will be perfect!

Have any of you ever suffered from that? Can't Remember ... errrrrr Doo doo ;) I went camping this weekend. Had everything packed in the SUV Thursday night as I was leaving directly from work on Friday. Camp site is about 1 hour from home. Half way there, I realize that my camera is still on my desk at home, plugged in being charged. AARRGGGHHHHH heheheheheeh

Pictures would have been fun because of all the mud. Got there Friday and it was very nice. Unload the SUV at camp site then drive it to the parking area. Saturday started out beautiful but the clouds moved in and it started raining that evening. Raining and raining and raining off and on all night courtesy of Typhoon Javier off the west coast.

We all got up Sunday to a mud bog of a site. My tent had a little dampness inside thanks to having put a rain tarp over it the night before but the site.... lots of mud. We were going to wait till the site dried out a but but it didn't stop so the order to evacuate the site was given.

Those of us who have to work on Monday left our tents and heavy things at the site, which is private land and some of the other campers were staying there still, got the necessary things down to the vehicles and off we went... down 12 miles of mud roads.

Thank heavens for 4 wheel drive. I made it out just fine and my friends and I are going back out either Wednesday or Thursday to get the rest of our things. Weather report shows that it should stop raining sometime on Wednesday. The ground is sandy clay so drains quickly but is unbelievably slick when wet.

I did get another Kumihimo braid started. Small one this time. Only 3 strands per Tama since I'm making a braid that is to be used to tie the side of a Medieval Gown.

I hope everyone had a nice and safe weekend!

Here's the scarf propped up on my notebook computer. Not the best way to take a picture but the sun has gone down outside and there wasn't enough light contrast out there, either.

The ouch part of the header is from the knitting. I have carpal tunnel rather badly and it really gets aggravated when I knit a lot... then, it's like it gets warmed up and quits hurting. Unfortunately, it hurts all the way up to my elbow. I know... I should go to the Dr. and have it looked at. Unfortunately, I dread the idea of surgery and the lack of knitting time that it will cause. Surprisingly enough, typing on the computer doesn't hurt but that's probably due to the ergonomic keyboard.

Hope Al didn't scare anyone. He's actually a very friendly Scopion. Doesn't eat anything, you don't have to clean up after him, and he's really quiet. eheheheh

Is it Friday yet?

Say it was a very dark night, no moon, no stars and you were walking home and saw this:

Would you run away screaming? Would you get closer to see what the heck had those glowing eyes?

See, he's not scary at all! It's just AL, the mascot of the barony of al-Barron!

I'm not scared of AL! Giddy Up, Scorpion! Giddy Up!

On the knitting front, I'm now half way done with my DNA scarf. It's working out very nicely. I won't be taking it camping with me this weekend since the recipient will be there so I'll probably take either the purple top, though I still need the extra ball of yarn and I have yet to find the same dye lot.. whine... so I just might take socks to work on as well as some more fiber to make more Kumihimo.

I should have a picture of the scarf to share soon!

What are your plans for the weekend?

I had such a wonderful day today. Got my hair cut and had plenty of knitting time. I've finished the third repeat of the pattern. Right now, it's 13.5 inches long.

I've been debating about whether to knit the ribbing in the middle or to just continue doing the pattern and have pretty much decided to do the ribbing are to allow for the scarf to lie better on the neck since it's currently 6 inches wide.

What do you all suggest?

Yes, the scarf needs blocking but it's turning out pretty well. I might hunt around for some blocking wires since they might work best on the straight edges of the scarf. I haven't seen any available locally but I worry that just using pins in the edges might make them ripple. I'll just have to see how things go.

I attempted to post this on Tuesday but Blogger didn't let me. It went into an infinite loop till I received an error message. I'm hoping that this post will go through eventually and I have contacted Blogger help. Apparently they had a melt down across several of their computers... so... here is Tuesday's post... posted on Wednesday!

I was able to start my DNA scarf as part of the Scarf-a-long this weekend. Hurray! It actually is looking pretty darned nice so far. I do have to admit to a few miss-starts, though.

I don't do well at knitting directly off of cable graphs so I decided to write out the pattern, line by line... okay... Word to the rescue.. got it all typed out and started knitting. Got to row 13 and realized that the cable pattern wasn't popping out... except for the simple twist cables on either side. Huummm... Looked at the pattern again and realized that I had read it backwards... duh. Okay... switched part of it around and restarted knitting.... you guessed it. Still didn't look right. No pop to the cable.

Now, I was thinking that the yarn might be the problem so I looked at the pattern one more time just to be sure and realized that I had only switched over part of the pattern and not each part of each row! Aarrggghhh. Retyped and reknitted and, as you can see from the picture, you can see the cables.

I'm using Reynold's Utopia in worsted weight. Tweed grey. I'm using US 5's so the fabric is working out very nicely. Hurray!!!

I wonder how everyone else is doing with the start of their DNA-Scarves?

I've joined the DNA-along and have added the button to the right of the screen. I'm using Reynolds Utopia in a grey tweed color. It's a worsted weight even though the pattern called for sport/dk weight, I think it will work out nicely.

This is the first knit-along that I'll be able to actually join since I already had this project planned for this time! The last one that I tried to join... I just never got the projects organized so it would be one that I was working on at that time. I'm really looking forward to this since it is a MidWinter present for a friend.

Oh the Kumihimo front:

This is a close-up of the braid that I made last Sunday. I would have liked the spiral to have been closer togethether but that, apparently, just means I need to use less counterweight. Since this was my first braid, I'm not worried as there will be plenty more in my future.

I've purchased a 9.5 inch circular disc to make a larger mirror, a larger oval for the base, and I bought more bobbins. Lots of sanding and working ahead of me. eheheh

My Maru Dai will not be going with me while we are camping this weekend since it's just for 2 nights and I really need to get working on the above mentioned scarf. If I go to the camping event the middle of the month... the scarf will have to stay home since the recipient will be there.

Don't be afraid to leave a comment! I don't bite, honest!! I won't even poke you with a knitting needle or a chopstick from my Maru Dai!