Scarf fo

Yippee. I've finished my Kathryn Alexander scarf using my stash yarns. So the colors are quite different from those in the book. I used a lot of Brown Sheep sport wt and knitting wt but I used the 3.75mm needles in the pattern and I got t he gauge. I found that blocking helped a lot. I haven't added buttons as I'm not sure why one needs buttons on a scarf. Take a look at the pictures.

second half 

first half of scarf 

coloroncolour scarf knitalong

I'm working the Kathryn Alexander scarf along with a yahoo group called coloroncolour. There may be a few problems along the way so it's nice to have a group project. The scarf was published in the Pam Allen, ed book called "Scarf style" and is probably the most exciting pattern in that book although there are several others I may just knit. I decided to hold fast to my yarn diet and therefore am using my stash for this one and besides I don't much care for the Paternayan persian yarns for this scarf. Because I'm using mainly Brown Sheep and some thin J&S and Rowan yarns, I don't have to struggle to make the Paternayan two ply or one ply but just knit along. I also don't have a colorcard so I'm winging it on the colors too. The fairisle ribbing section is shown in the two photos below.

So far I seem to be on gauge and working fast so maybe I can still wear it while we are having winter over here.

My son arrived with a box of beads from South AFrica and they are going to be used up in various projects. However, I do think the beads I find here are more interesting. However, the price was good as he refused payment! He's traveling around the world so I need to ask him about Bali beads as he'll be in Jakarta shortly.

I'm also working on the KF mystic stripes sweater and was going to give some hints about how to do this thing which has 170 rows of stripes before it repeats which is basically a new color with every row and a real pita. Anyway, after the scarf, I'll go back to the mystic. I did make an excell chart for it and keyed it to a colorcard by letter so it does make the whole thing much easier.

colorway project 

scarf 

entrelac finished

This week I finally finished an old wip: an entrelac in two shades of purple from some long discontinued Israeli yarn and hopefully there'll be a photo sometime. So this encouraged me to try and finish something else and I've got about half a sleeve left on a Szabo aran called Teddy.
I had to frog the beaded sock from the Lily Chin book as I had knit it on size Amer 2 instead of metric 2 plus there is no ribbing at the top and the heel was done in something with short rows which left gaping holes on each edge.
But meanwhile Israel is asking for his cardi which has big problems as I changed the cable pattern after I'd already cast on and now it's pulling in too much to fit him. I will have to make the fronts wider to get the size.
Then I pulled out another wip: this time an AS from her Celtic collection and I promptly knit wrong about 5 rows so frogged that also. Some weeks it just doesn't work out.
Now for good news: my son is coming soon and he offered to buy me beads in South Africa so online people gave me a recommendation and the funny thing is that last night he was walking down the street and sort of ran into it. So he called today and I had a wonderful time as all their beads are online. Apparently it's a huge store and my son says he and it are smack in the center of Zululand.
The price seems good as well so maybe I'll order a bit more. I've been making a list of all the patterns in all my VK issues with beads knit into the sweaters. I've also ordered a few more bead knit patterns. Some pros are not fans of the great Lily so I want to try their patterns also.