bring on the holidays...

I'll be ready! I saw the first snowflake of the season on Sunday night. OK, it was more like the dreaded "wintry mix" (talk about a euphemism) than snow, but I'm still glad I got a head start on my holiday knitting a couple months ago.

Since I apparently can't bear not having Malabrigo on the needles, I cast on for another cabled scarf right away:

It's the "Inner Truth Cashmere Scarf" from the old Magknits. I managed to find the pattern via the Wayback Machine here. The pattern's fun to knit -- row 5 is a tiny bit counterintuitive, but you get used to it after 2 repeats or so. Malabrigo's as thin as I would want to go on the yarn -- otherwise the scarf would be too narrow for my taste.

On Sunday I headed over to Arcadia for Franklin's book release party! It was great -- he even read a couple passages from the book. BTW, It Itches is downright hilarious, and would make a great holiday gift. Doesn't Franklin have lovely penmanship?

I also managed to meet up with Bobbi (AKA Krafty 1), who was friendly, chatty, and wonderful.

Speaking of books with marvelous illustrations...

Long-time readers of Caffeinated Yarn are aware of my Edward Gorey fixation by now, I'm sure. I picked up Amphigorey Too at a charming and well-stocked used bookshop (Bookworks) right near my apt. Paul and I were on the way home from drinks, and I saw it in the window and just had to stop.

I ordered Lucky Jim through Paperback Swap, and I didn't even really look at the cover when it arrived. Paul, on the other hand, immediately noticed and asked if it had an Edward Gorey cover. Yes, indeed! What a treasure.

Today it's Capricha who's trying to keep me from getting work done. Case in point:

Oh well, at least she seems to like the hat.

Pattern: Unoriginal Hat, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Leticia --
unmarked colorway (sugarplums maybe?)
Needles: Clover US 10.5 bamboo DPNs

Notes: This yarn is super bulky! It seems more like pin-drafted roving (not sure if that's the right term) rather than "yarn." It's super soft and nice to work with. This produced a much larger hat than my first version. In fact, following the Yarn Harlot's decrease instructions resulted in a hat fit for a Conehead. I ripped back a few rows (to the end of the repeated section), k2tog-ed all the way around, and ran the yarn through. It looks just fine on.

Next time I'd cut a row or two out of the repeat section so that I could do the pretty decreases as written.