Araucania Nature Wool Worsted in colors 19 and 35

I used this yarn in a recent design project and loved it so much that I bought some for myself. Over the weekend, I came across Purl Bee’s Treeline Striped Cardigan pattern (pattern here). Those stripes! The stripes are so fine and mottled that they look hand-drawn. Must have, in the same colors, even, which is rare. I’ll definitely add some waist shaping, and I’m not sure about getting gauge, but that’s about it for changes. It’s lovely just as it is. Let’s not mention that half of my shirts and socks are striped, and that I might be getting a little carried away with this lately.

The pulse warmers are coming along nicely but slowly. Work has nipped away at my knitting time until it’s almost become nonexistent. This must change. On Saturday and Sunday night, I planted myself on the couch and knit for hours and hours: long enough that limbs fell asleep and I had a limp when I finally did get up. Tea and cookies (love them) were consumed, and really excellent movies were watched. I’m slightly embarrassed about my love of the last one, but might as well put it out there. This is where you realize that I might be a little screwy. :P

There’s a shop update tomorrow, with handspun and hand-dyed yarn galore, plus lots of turned wood tools from Maisy Day Handspun. See you then!

It’s not perfect yet. I’ve got to keep the red and black steek stitches in at least by one stitch, so they don’t peek through when the button band stitches are picked up, and the button bands need to be slightly narrower, but it’s a good start.

The buttons, stolen from the ill-fitting neck warmer part of the Highland Norsk sweater, are PERFECT on this. I fretted and fretted all through the knitting that they would be too large, but they look great.

I got the buttons at Bea Ellis Knitwear (A++ service), but they have more styles here (I’ve never shopped there). If you have, let me know. I’m sure I need more troll buttons, now that I’ve used these.

Pattern to come, so find some buttons!

I was starting to feel like I was all talk.

This is going to be the simplest design of the bunch, since pulse warmers don’t give a lot of space for complex pictures. I started with these, since they’re a good way to swatch for the mittens and fingerless mitts that are coming. I thought I knew what gauge to expect, even though Lamullgarn is new to me, and I got a bit of a surprise with the 10 sts. per inch that I got, as opposed to my usual 9. Thankfully, these will get button bands, so any extra width needed can be added with those.

The yarn is a very sticky fingering wool not unlike Shetland, but with a gorgeous gloss that Shetland doesn’t have. It’s wonderful stuff, especially for colorwork.

A word of review, since I received the books I mentioned in that previous post: they’re okay. The last one on the page, Selbustrikk, is wonderful, with tons and tons of very traditional-looking, intricate patterns for socks, stockings, mittens, gloves, hats and scarves. The others are larger gauge takes on traditional patterns (a lot like Dale of Norway), which is good, but not what I was looking for.