Holiday Knitting

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Thank you so much for the support during my Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday Sale.  Now that you have stocked your Ravelry Library with some new patterns and did a bit of stash enhancement from the sales lists that Marly Bird and Lisa from Indie Untangled put together it's time to figure out what to cast on!   I'll be casting on a couple of pairs of Intersect Mitt's tonight for gift giving.  They knit up so quickly and it's a really fun pattern.  I have some nice yarn from Indieway Yarns in my stash that I plan on using for both pairs.

I also will be working on a few new designs in the coming months and am really looking forward to getting started on them.  One of them is going to be in this delicious yarn from Bare Naked Wools.  It's called Confection Sport, and there is good reason for that.  If you look up confection in the dictionary it should say: See Bare Naked Wools, but all it says is: a dish or delicacy made with sweet ingredients.  It's absolutely scrumptious!  This colorway is called Nougat, but it comes in several other delicious colorways like: Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate.  Yum!!

 I hope that you are enjoying the holiday season and remember to take time to relax and knit in between going to the market and trying to fit in all of the festivities.  Speaking of which, my annual Festivus post is coming right up and I have some fun prizes to give away! 

Spring Might Actually Be Here!

We happened to be very lucky and it was 65 here on the first day of spring!  The song birds are back and late last night I heard a flock of geese that were heading north for the summer.  While winters here aren't as harsh as many other areas, this one seemed to drag on a bit longer than normal.  The first spring flowers are making an appearance and can be spotted almost everywhere.  I really enjoy seeing them bloom!  This daffodil is in our garden.

 

I spotted this crocus while I was out running errands today.  It was peeking up through the grass next to the sidewalk. 

Ever since I was a little girl one of my favorite things is to get the mail.  You never know what might arrive that day, and even if it is bills it was still fun wondering what was going to be in the box before you got there.

Earlier this week I revived a package full of squishy goodness from Knitspot's Bare Naked Wools.  Erica aka majordomo contacted me about having a sample of Spark knitted for their Look Book in three colors of their wonderful Confection yarn and a second sample in Confection with hand dyed yarn as the accents.  Beth is knitting the sample that is all in BNW's and I am working on the one that has the hand dyed accents.  I'm using Confection Worsted in Cookies and Cream with Indieway's Best Worsted in Black Currant and Periwinkle. I love knitting with both of the yarns and putting them together is extra special!  Confection is lofty and soft and just glides through your fingers while you knit.  Best Worsted is soft and smooth and in Black Currant and Periwinkle really stands out with the Cookies and Cream.  Spark is one of those patterns that is fun to knit and doesn't require a large amount of yarn - just 70 yards for each contrasting color and 200 yards for the main color.  Choose a  neutral for the main color like Cookies and Cream and pair it with some brighter left overs that you have saved in your stash.  I think it would look great with a variegated colorway for the contrast too.  The possibilities are endless.

I've just gotten started on mine so you can't really see much yet.

 

A peek in my project bag shows how pretty the yarns look together:

 

I love the pictures of Confection that Anne has on Raverly.  It must have been a fun photo shoot!