Scarf Review

***If you haven't entered my Blogiversary contest (see previous post), please be sure to do so. The prize is a gift certificate to The Loopy Ewe!***

I joined the International Scarf Exchange, and started my scarf last night.

I looked at lots of different patterns, but I just couldn't get past the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. And since I was too anxious to start to wait for Blue Moon to restock the mediumweight STR or for my LYS to reopen so they could sell me some Koigu, I started with the lightweight STR I had on hand--Lemongrass and Farmhouse.

So, tell me. How's it looking?

Also--FO Alert! I finished this pair of baby cable ribbed socks for my sister-in-law Cheryl. Just for no reason. Well, that's not true. She was COMPLAINING that I hadn't made her a pair yet...

The yarn is STR in Marbles.

Blogiversary Trivia Contest

It looks like my blogiversary is coming up, so in the grand tradition of giving away stuff to celebrate, I am announcing a contest.

All you have to do is answer the following 5 questions about me and my projects. All the answers will easily be found somewhere in my posts.

The winner will be chosen at random from all entrants. You have until Friday, April 6th to enter, and then I will announce the winner on April 10, which is my actual blogiversary!

To enter, send me an email with your answers. I guess it doesn't matter if you post your answers in the comments because everyone who sends me 5 answers gets entered to win, whether the answers are right or not, but still, it might be fun for people to do a little scavenger hunt. So email them to me at yarnpal at cox dot net (Replace "at" and "dot" with the appropriate symbols and remove the spaces).

Let's seem what else.....AH! You want to know about the prize! It's a good one....

A $25.00 gift certificate to The Loopy Ewe!

Is that worth playing for?

And now, here are the questions:

1. What is my miniature schnauzer's name?

2. What yarn did I use to knit my first ever pair of socks?

3. Where was I born?

4. What sock-in-progress did I have the deckhand pose with?

5. What sweater am I knitting for my husband?

BONUS: Which of my projects finished in the last year is your favorite?

Thanks for playing along!

Random Photos

Yarn Extravaganza

One of our LYS' is relocating, and for the last several weeks they have been increasing the sale priceof all their yarn. Today was the first day I stopped by, and I was surprised to see they still had quite a lot of good stuff left. And all at 75% off!

Who cares that I have no idea what I am going to do with the majority of it.

One skein of Louet's Euroflax.


4 skeins Patagonia Nature Cotton.


5 skeins Rowanspun.


5 skeins of Elisabeth Lavold Silky Tweed.


4 skeins Karabella SuperYak. This, I actually have a plan for. My dad has asked for a scarf. Since this shows him actually taking an interest in my knitting, I thought I had better deliver, and deliver good. 50% Yak, %50 merino ought to be pretty good.

All of this for less than $50! Gotta love a sale.

Self-Indulgent Pet Photos, Dyeing Yarn, and Leo Update

Elly is very shaggy and in desperate need of a haircut. However, tonight, more than a haircut, she desperately needed a bath.


See, schnauzers can get very dirty, very surreptitiously. It's one of their traits, along with stubbornness and wet beards after drinking water.


So this one, after I discovered a patch of dried mud on her belly, got unceremoniously tossed into the bathtub.


Ok, I am almost embarrassed to post this photo. I swear the bathtub was clean prior to the schnauzer-bathing.



As for other news, and this time is it yarn-related, Eric and I decided to try our hand at dyeing yarn. Eric had received some pretty crappy fingering-weight arn on a big cone, so we experimented with that and Wilton icing dyes.

We're looking forward to trying it with some good quality sock yarn, so if you know of a source, let us know!


I think our ultimate results were pretty good.


As for the finished product, you'll have to wait until the knitted-up swatches are complete before I show them off.


But here's a little sneak preview for you.

Lastly, The back of Leo is finished. I have started on one of the sleeves, and don't look forward to all the miles of 5x3 ribbing ahead of me. But it will be worth it!

I'll leave you with this creepy photo of Oliver looking out the front door.

A Book Meme!

I snagged this one from Craftyminx.

In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole*, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

*except I did mine in red because I don't know how to do a strikeout!

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. +To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. +Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. +Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. +A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. +Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. +The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitch hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. +Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. *The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. +The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. +The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On the Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Whew! That was a fun one.

Speaking of fun, ya'll should go sign up for the Wee Tiny Sock Swap. It's just that. A teeny 20-stitch sock that you make, then send to someone else. A non-laborintensive, time-intensive, or money-intensive swap!

I'll look for you there.

Springiness

It has been warm and sunny here for several days, and I noticed my neighbor's magnolia tree is starting to bloom.


Soon they will all be blooming and smell wonderful. And then they will all fall off and turn in to a sloppy, brown, slippery mess. But they look pretty now.

There was the first faint sign of a spring storm in the air yesterday afternoon, and sure enough, we had a brief thunderstorm late last night.

Of course, storm season in Oklahoma brings with it the everpresent weather warning on the corner of the television screen.

I must be avoiding talking about the knitting. I remind myself of the irritating people who get on the elevator with me in my office building and chatter inanely about the weather. Sorry.

Leo is growing. I am just under 11 inches now. So only 6.5 inches to go. On the back. Someone in my knitting group suggested starting the sleeves, just to break up the monotony. It seems that doing both sleeves at the same time is the best route to go, so I may cast on for those this weekend.

Oh, and Paul made pork chops the other night. He was extremely proud of them, so I just wanted to document the result here.

Have a good weekend!