Frantic Knitting

As this blog is also about knitting I thought I should post a bit about what's been going on. I was slaving away on holiday knitting and then got a brief reprieve in January. I finished half of the fair isle scarf and started the other half and managed to make myself a Koolhaas (which is too small for me and will have to be gifted). Can you believe it's Feb 13th and I have only 1 FO to date? I can't. But at the end of Jan Erin at Bobbin's Nest commissioned me to work up a new fingerless glove pattern for the Hazel Knits sock yarn she's just started selling. So all my knitting came to a screeching halt as I have to have this done and ready to be printed for sale on Stitches weekend. I'm so excited as this will be my first pattern for sale!

I swatched furiously for a couple weeks on some scrap yarn I had lying around trying to come up with the perfect pattern. Then the yarn arrived and it was time to dive in. At last I've finished the first pair and it's time to write up the pattern. I'm going to make a second pair from the pattern to make sure it's correct. All in all I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. I came up with a pretty creative beginning that I haven't seen elsewhere (though I'm sure someone somewhere at some point has done this as there really isn't anything truly new out there). My biggest hitch now is naming the darn things. I think I'll get Grant to snap a picture for me and put them up here to get some suggestions from my readers.

I'd also like to say that if you're looking for a new online yarn store go check out Sonny and Shear. Jen sent me a gift cert for my birthday to them and since it was burning a hole in my pocket I ran off and used it up right away. I picked up some lovely Dream in Color that I think will be come a Wicked.

I love them for several reasons. First off, I ordered on Friday and had the yarn by Tuesday. Then I received an email from them letting me know that since this is hand dyed I'd want to alternate skeins to minimize pooling. Now I already knew this (see HSD debacle), but I thought it was very nice of them to go out of their way to let me know this in case I didn't. Then, the icing on the cake, I received another email this week letting me know that they had accidentally charged my credit card for the full amount, rather than the amount that went beyond the gift cert. How great is that? I checked my statement online and sure enough they were right. So I let them know and the next day they refunded the amount.

So they now have my online shopping love. Any time I can't find a yarn at one of the LYSs around here I'll check there first. You just can't beat such personalized, warm and friendly service!