All the way to... "???"

So, I finished my New Year Secret Scarf Exchange scarf. And I'm pumped about it. Like, so pumped that even though I don't even particularly like the color blue, I wanna keep the thing. I think she puuuuurdy. Here she is, in all her shriveled glory, about 24.7 seconds after I bound off. I modeled her on the white blanket under a white-ish lamp and grabbed my camera before blocking began.

Then I blocked, using my favorite SOAK scent (flora) and straightened, rolled, and squeezed the best I could into this towel:

Then, of course, I blocked. BLOCK, PEOPLE!!! Look at the difference in this and the following photos compared to the first two above. It's amazing how blocking TOTALLY MAKES your knitting pop!

Kick-ass red fingernails getting the job done right:

Pinned and ready to dry overnight:

Not sure why I look so sneaky with my perky little lips here. But the tousled hair and rosy cheeks are pure I-totally-just-woke-up material. As soon as I smooched Hubster goodbye for the day (I head to work after he does), I unpinned, wrapped, and photographed the heck outta this scarf. I love her, she's gorge! And I hope my scarfee, all the way in Scarfee-land does, too.

The palm of my hand is bruised, but...

(Whew, I was beginning to think that Blogger thought my knitting was too fug to allow any photos of it to be published. Turns out, it just takes FOREVER for my pictures to upload and I forgot about that since the last time I shimmy'd here at PurlyTwirly was about a week-and-a-half ago. Sorry, I'll be better! Please ignore the lighting by lamp. I wanted to write this tonight, which meant no natural light to show true color. But we'll get there as the projects progress, promise.)

So, I have been keeping myself really busy in my spare time lately with plenty of yarn on the needles.  Ysolda seems to be a bit of a muse for me. Aside from her lovely wavy blonde hair and timeless pretty face and charming bloggy wit, she's got a genius pattern planning brain. I have three projects in the works that are of her sweet, whimsical design. I should have just gone ahead and purchased her first book, Whimsical Little Knits, but I couldn't bare to wait for it to be delivered. So, I purchased the instant pdf download of her Poppy and got to work immediately. Now, I have two Poppys ready for their debut. But for now, just in case anyone who actually knows me in real life decides to be sneaky and lookyloo over here before these darlings can be gifted, I'll only be sharing a snippet. Here's the one (she's the blonde, for Miss Addison) who isn't packed away for the drive up for giveaway. I still cuddle on her. I'll still be sad when they're both out of my hands. She waves hi.

The third project by Ysolda is one that I've got on the plastic size US6 needles: Elijah the elephant. I can't wait to pick up the stitches necessary to make those big, floppy ears on the sides of that huge head! I love the yarn I'm using from my stash, Lion Brand's Cotton Ease in color 11 Lake. It's a great-looking muted grayish blue and I'm really happy with how it's knitting up. It's pretty firm and sturdy, which makes for a great stuffed animal yarn because his little stuffed animal guts aren't squishing through the loops (so sorry for the graphic nature of that sentence!).

And finally, of course, is an update on my New Year Secret Scarf Exchange scarf. Y'all. I am truly in love with this pattern, Branching Out by Susan Lawrence (and it's published over there at knitty.com). It's very pretty. It's growing (seemingly) quickly. It's just easy enough to keep me proud of myself for totally getting it, and just tough enough to keep me working at it, because honestly, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. To attend to my super-secret scarfee's preferences, I selected a heathered dark blue yarn, Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool in color 95. While it's not my favorite color, I will admit that it is a very lovely yarn. Indeed! And, yes, I bunched it up on purpose so that you couldn't really see anything. I'm very, very sneaky.

The palm of my hand is bruised because my genius boss (owner/mogul of SuzannesQuilts.com (check out the blog, SuzannesQuilts.com/blog! (yes, that was a shameless plug for the blog I keep at work, and yes, this is a TRIPLE parentheses, thankyouverymuch!))) decided that for Fat Tuesday, we'd have a "Buy 20, get 10 free" sale on all fat quarters in the shop. That means that for all of my Monday, all.I.did.all.day.long. was cut fat quarters! And, well, the rotary cutter, cupped in the center of the palm of my hand, decided to go ahead and bruise it while it was there. Have you ever had a bruise on the dead-center of the palm of your dominant hand? It sucks. Wiggle your thumb. Ouch. Wiggle your fingers. Youch! Pick something up. You guessed it. So I'm knitting a little slower than my typical slow knitter self, but I'm still truckin' along! GO TEAM USA!!!

What's on your hot little knitter needles?

New Year Secret Scarf Exchange

So, I am a part of my very first ever exchange, and I just sort of fell into a group that I'm absolutely loving. I'm really enjoying being a part of a semi-somewhat community. I like knitting something for someone who will appreciate the work that has gone into making it, and I absolutely love the fact that someone out there that I don't even know is making something just for me.

I was especially pumped to have found what I thought was the perfect color yarn for the gal I was assigned in the secret exchange--a dark heathered blue made of a wool and silk blend. It was soft, supple, and was knitting up beautifully. That is, until this afternoon. This yarn met an ill fate indeed.

You see, I got this great idea to suppress my PMS oh pitiful me feelings and make myself some brownies. I found a recipe here at Smitten Kitchen today that promised to make some good, rich, delicious brownies and decided to give it a try. Hey, why not? I already had all the necessary ingredients, plus plenty of milk to wash it all down with a smile.

Well, to get the recipe into the kitchen with me, that meant the laptop needed to come sit on the counter. And, since the battery didn't really want to cooperate long enough for me to finish the 20 minutes of cocoa and sugar and butter melting preparation on the stovetop, I needed the power cord.

Of course, I had been knitting on my secret scarf for my secret exchange buddy before I got up to make the brownies, and the laptop had the pattern pulled up on the screen. When the power cord was brought to the kitchen, the yarn (which had been resting on a portion of the cord) got tangled and mangled and incredibly discombobulated. It was enough to make any knitter sick. And, yes, I know that I should have rolled the yarn into a ball as soon as I unpacked it from the mail wrapping. But I just wanted to get started already!

So, this is what I am left with now:

A mangled disaster of fibers, all knotted up in a mess of I'll-never-get-this-untangled-ness. And a portion of a scarf that could have turned out beautifully. No-no-no, the yarn is too far gone. She has been taken off life support and we're just waiting for the trash pick-up Monday at 7:00am.

Now, I've planned a trip to Valdosta tomorrow afternoon, just a short 45 minute drive down the road, to buy some emergency get-back-to-it yarn so that I can officially get re-started.

yaaaaaaaaay.