Something for Me

NB - Change date to 12/28/2015 if I ever publish this.

A few notes to the failure stories from last post. Then on to new adventures.

The gray scarf is almost done. I may not be able to hold onto it until next Christmas. It seemed like a reasonable plan in the midst of our El Nino December, but it's turned really unpleasant out there. The sleety, windy, icy, windy, snowy, windy variety of nasty. And did I mention windy?

Today's not-fun project is to frog the Raglan Sweater and reclaim the yarn. The debate is whether to frog the whole thing or try changing the yoke. This may be an intense debate. It could be that frogging will wait.

The tree skirt was at least a functional tree skirt, just not an embellished one. The giftee has instructions to return it when the season is over, but for the moment, I'm off the hook.

All of which means I'm going back to knitting for me. I got some fabulous yarn from My Sister. It's Verdant Gryphon Zaftig, a worsted weight blend of merino, cashmere and nylon. I have two skeins of it in Jade Eyed Bengal. I Googled Jade Eyed Bengal. It's a strange mix, but mostly tigers and Bengal kittens. None of which seem to have anything to do with the colors on the skeins I've got.

No matter. I have a pattern. I've had Leethal Knits' Betiko Shawl in my knitting patterns folder for over three years. Back then I was too intimidated by the casual instructions; it's more of a recipe for infinite variations than a cut-and-dried kind of pattern. Trolling through Ravelry's pattern search felt unusually uninspiring until Betiko came up. Not a lot of people have made it, but the ones who have write good things about it. It's enough for me.

I'm giving the "Wavy" version a try. The shawl starts with a sort of garter tab. One might say, an eXtreme garter tab. It's three inches wide, patterned, goes on for 24 to 32 inches and, by way of the clever use of a KFB increase followed by a short row gives you all the stitches you need for the main body of the shawl without having to pick any of them up.

I'm intrigued. It was tedious at the start, but as the pattern emerges (and as I internalize the repeats), it's getting fun. Well, fun-ish? Less tedious? Interesting, but in a good way? Most of all, it's for me. At last, some no-pressure knitting.

 Strangely, I can't seem to make myself take any pictures of these projects. It is a hard and fast rule that any blog without picture's is simple a rant.

So here are a couple more pictures of what I got at Stitches Midwest this year.  The red is Miss Babs something that is not Vlad.  I don't remember what and I'm not stash diving to find out.

The cream is a fabulous wool silk blend, from who I can't recall and of unknown colorway (see stash-diving comment above).  I can tell you that the pattern is Knitspot's Les Abeilles.

Edited to add.
P.S. You can see pictures of the scarf, sweater and tree-skirt in the previous post. 

P.P.S. If I read my own blog, I would be able to tell you about the Stitches yarn (Miss Babs Shiruku in Scarlet Letter (so, still not Vlad) and Seda Sock from Grinning Gargoyle in Petals).