Crimson Leaves, or My quarterly update

Ok it has almost been a full three months since my last post.  A lot of knitting happened during the holidays, but most of it was stealth knitting, and I didn't want to write about it in the event prying eyes read the blog (yes, mom I mean you!).  But Christmas has come and gone, and the gift has been delivered.

So here is what I was being so secretive about:

This gem is from Cheryl Oberle's Knitted Jackets, the pattern is Ivory Leaves - I call mine Crimson Leaves.  Cheryl is my knitting hero, her patterns are so much fun to knit, and most of them come together without a lot of finishing work.  The sleeves and the collar and knitted onto this shrug, so basically it is block and walk knitting!  This is stash yarn, purchased when I was newly re-aquainted with knitting and didn't keep my labels...  My mom will probably kill me for posting this photo....  This is knit in the smaller size as mom is tiny!  But the color is fantastic with her complexion and hair!  The shawl pin is from Cheryl as well.  I am knitting the same shrug for myself in a lavender baby alpaca (it hibernates right now).

The Sunday before New Year's Eve we were in Campbell, CA at the Farmer's Market (best one in the south bay if you happen to live in Northern CA...  just my opinion), and I noticed that my favorite LYS Green Planet Yarns was MOVING!!!!!   Horrors!  Of course I had to run in and get the scoop.  They are moving to Willow Glenn in San Jose - which for them isn't a big deal, but for me who lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains, its a whole 6 more miles!!!  Ok really it was just a grand excuse to drag my family into one of my favorite yarn shops.

While mother and I were wandering, testing yarns (yes they have needles and samples of lots of their yarns that you can knit a row or twenty) I came across Noro's Shiraito, in this fantastic color way, and knit as this great little shawlette.  They had two hanks of the yarn in this amazing color way - I bought them both, and ran home to download Wingspan from Ravelry.  I knit it over the next few days.  I have been trolling the web trying to find more of this incredible cashmere and angora blend, but it is scarce as hen's teeth.  This is the first Noro yarn that I have ever used.  I LOVE it, I love how the colors created such great blocks.  I did add a flourish of my own to the pattern, I didn't have enough yarn to knit eight triangles in the shawl, but I didn't want to have a tiny bit of this yarn left over, so in keeping with the tiny holes the short row shaping creates in the pattern (which I really like), I added a YO to my cast of edge, it used up my yarn to the last six inches, and makes a great spot for a button closure!  Knit this one, its a keeper!

Cuzco, from Cheryl's Knitted Jackets is making happy progress.  I can't wait to have it as a spring jacket!.

Me and Mom in our wonderful Center Panel Shawls...  Terrible picture (as mom might say, "we look like sick cows") great shawls!  Note how nicely her edges lay on her shawl, she used blocking wires.

And I think I have been knitting under a rock, I just discovered Madelintosh yarns.  Where have I been?  I am knitting a  hat for the hubby in a great DK colorway called Stephen Loves Tosh.  Kinda digging the Reggae groove...

Rediscovered needle felting, felting needles are also a great tool for fixing runs in burbur carpeting...  but that is another story altogether.