Little Treasures
Kind of a quiet week for me. Most of my knitting is "in progress" and the cold kept me from venturing too far from work or home. John and I did have a lovely dinner at a little neighborhood Irish bar, the name of which I can't remember at the moment. Unfortunate, because they had wonderful winter comfort food and a fire place and I know we'll be heading back there again.
I do have one WIP that is interesting for me, at least from the yarn perspective. While at Knitting Workshop over the weekend I picked up 3 balls of Austermann Candy Color. I've always wondered if there were any yarns out there that would feel like Polar Fleece when knit up. This one definitely does. After knitting a swatch and thinking about it, I decided that I don't yet have a good winter hat, so I would try out the Anne Norling Spiral Rib Hat pattern that I picked up while in Ann Arbor. Here's a snap of the work in progress:
It certainly isn't ribbing in quite the way the pattern meant it to, but I like it so far, even though it has been one frogging experience after another -- it's easy to split with the needles, it catches on everything and I have an incredible ability to lose track of K2P2 ribbing for some reason. I think the colors are what is keeping me going -- and the thought of wearing it!
It's been a good week for mail order goodies for me. It started with part of my KnitPicks order arriving -- a ball of artful yarns portrait that I just ordered on a whim when I ordered my blocking board. It looked like it had neat colors and at $3.98 it seemed like a cheap way to find out what it would be like knitting with a mohair yarn blend. The colors in the photo on the website don't do the stuff justice! It is much more vivid and interesting. I was so inspired by it that even before I knit it up I ordered three more skeins for a surprise present for someone I know who needs a shawl. I also got my order from Levenger a wonderful place that sells all sorts of things that you will like if you are a writing instrument and little box junkie like me. I've ordered from them several times and have been pleased with the results on all occasions. Here's one of the sets of goodies that I ordered:
I thought the little leather pouches would be wonderful for knitting accessories. (And yes, this is what my desk looks like...packed with origami boxes, knitting gear, body lotions and consumer electronics.)
In the bottom right corner is one of my new favorite tech toys, a Logitech MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse. I am a mouse fanatic and this one is a real treat -- it feels nice in my hand and it is geared for browsing. The two buttons near the thumb are set to direct the browser to go forward and backward pages. I hardly have to move the mouse pointer to do anything. Hard to imagine that I could be too lazy to move a mouse pointer to the back arrow of a browser... but I am!
Now, back to my hat!
