The Yarn Fairy has been very good to me!

The yarn on the left is for the Hogwarts Scarf for the Library Fund Raiser and for M’s Georgia Tech scarf. I think you can figure out which colors are for which scarf. The yarn on the right is for the Fund Raiser Hat and Scarf. This stuff is delightful! It is soft as anything and a little fuzzy and silky and has a great drape and I will certainly use it again! I’ve already started on the FRH&S.

I’ll post the pattern when I’ve finished the scarf. I think they’re pretty. There is nothing more fun to make than a cabled scarf. Now I have to go, Betty insists that it’s time for lunch. I think her watch is fast.

PS I got to the arms on M’s Cardigan! Work on that project is temporarily suspended due to the Library Knitting Time Crunch.

I sat up a while last night and knit until the pattern got too complicated (or rather, I was too tired for the pattern). Which means that I am about 10 inches from the cast on edge. Armholes and neck shaping don’t happen until 16 3/4.

Lucy has developed a love of yarn. She takes whole balls (about half her size) and carries them down the hall to hide under the bed. I guess she’s making a stash. Last night, she grabbed the one attached to M’s Cardigan (which, incidentally, was hidden underneath an afghan) and took off down the hall. Since Lamb’s Pride comes in pull skeins, my knitting stayed in the chair and the ball of yarn made a long trail down the hall and into the bedroom. When Lucy discovered that it was still attached to something, she chewed through the offending trail and placed the rest of the ball under the bed with three others. All the yarn has been recovered and I have been rethinking my knitting bag arrangements. Perhaps I should switch to bags with zippers.

Now I am off to watch a little more television and knit. Maybe I’ll make it to the armholes by tonight.

How many more days ’til November?

Here are some knit bloggers on the Texas Gulf Coast. Just to keep y’all informed.

• One Stitch Short
• Fruitcakes Here a-Knititn’
• Elvis Knits (Elvis is the cat)
• Off the Kuff
• Texas is sooo big… (How big is it?) Texas is so big that the knitters have their own blog ring!
• If you are in the Houston-Galveston area and you are planning to ride it out, why not experiment with a little citizen journalism?

As for me, I’m waiting to see how quickly this thing turns north (and how big it gets) to decide if I need to bring in the hanging plants. I’ve also been wishing (as usual) for a down-grade. To pass the time, I’ve been working on M’s cardigan. The pattern is titled “Men’s V-Neck Cardigan” and is by Mari. You can take a peek at the promised results here. As I was looking for the v-neck, I had to scroll through a whole bunch of intriguing patterns!

I ordered Great Gran some yarn which I thought was the right yarn but it turns out I was wrong. She shouldn’t have thrown away the yarn bands. Knowing that the yarn came in a doughnut shape with a pale band is just not enough to go on! I did get the brand right (Rowan). I’ll be calling in the morning to see if the nice folks at Yarn Market can figure out where I went wrong.

I seamed Elspeth, tried her on (she fits, but looks weird, thus no pictures) and packed her up to mail to Mom.

After my visit to the post office, I started work on the The Fund Raiser Scarf and Hat. I developed a Prototype Scarf fairly quickly.

It wasn’t far to a completed Prototype Hat.

Before you get too excited about the speed of development of these items, just remember that there are only so many ways to decrease the top of a hat.

When I placed the order with Knit Picks (seriously have you seen their prices?) I had yet to put three cables in the scarf. So now I’m all worried that I didn’t get enough yarn. I am going to work around this little difficulty by making the hat first, reviewing my yarn supply and determining if I should make the scarf with just two cables. Knitting is always an adventure!

I finished the sleeves as promised.

Here is a more artistic version of Elspeth Blocking.

I couldn’t leave her on the table to dry (I used the pin and spray method to stop the curling with out squashing the texture): pulling out all the pins and chewing on them is a Fun Project for the cats. Apparently, pin heads look like tiny pieces of delicious cat candy.* Who wants to explain that to her vet? My solution is to stow my blocking board on top of the baker’s cabinet and hope that no one comes to the front door (“Gee, why is that giant piece of cardboard suspended so precariously near your ceiling?”). Some things just take too much energy to explain.

I also swatched for Michael’s Cardigan.

Someday I will remember to look at the pattern and figure out who wrote it and what the cardigan’s proper name is. Until that day, Dear Reader, you will just have to cope.

I’ve been exploring several options for the Library’s Fund-Raiser, and thanks to a comment suggestion from Karin, discovered these Hogwarts Scarves. Karin was actually suggesting Hermione’s cable-and-bobble hat which makes me think fondly of Dobby cleaning the Gryffindor common room all by himself. . . but I ended up settling on the scarf. I think it would be a wonderful Halloween Costume Accessory and Ideal for a Library. Lauren (the designer) has given me permission to make one for the auction (thanks a bunch and the books thank you, too). I’ve already ordered the yarn. For those of you who haven’t taken a look at the selection over at Knit Picks, I really encourage you to do so. Their prices just can’t be beat.

Unfortunately, Harry’s Scarf doesn’t solve the Hat and Scarf Ensemble Difficulty. I’m just going to have to make it up myself. I’ve been working on scarf patterns today and attempting to incoorporate all the basic elements of Give Away To A Stranger Design: nothing too complex, nothing too plain, nothing too boring to make. This is complicated by my project-specific requirement: elements that can be translated into a matching hat. I’ll let you know how it goes.

*Speaking of candy, the little heathens ate most of a Blow Pop last night. They didn’t make it to the gum in the center but they gave it the Old College Try. Is it bad that the part of this that bothered me the most was not the theft itself, but the Sticky that they left all over the floor? I have moved the rest of the Blow Pops to an undisclosed, secure location.