I'm on Ravelry!

I've been invited to join Ravelry, and that's been a lot of fun posting my projects on and seeing who else is making/made the same thing or who else is stashing as much Magpie as I've been. To check it out, go here.

Check out the 3 hats I finished up for the Ships Project. I redid the red part of the slip stitch striped one (it has the vertical stripes); the red on that one is Beaverslide Dry Goods wool/mohair, otherwise the rest of the yarn is Rowan Magpie.




I'm still not a huge fan of doing color knitting; cables and texture and lace will always hold sway in my heart. But I can almost conceive of doing a real Fair Isle project one day. Lord knows I've spent enough time drooling over AS' colorways and I do love color, especially her use of color.

I must have some second sock syndrome; I'm nearly done with the second watermelon sock (past the gusset and about halfway up the sole) and just am not interested in working on it. And I"m nearly done with the Baby's Breath socks I started out of Meilenweit (the pattern is by Jeanie Townsend; her website is called Just Me Jeanie). Instead, I started Evelyn Clark's Lupine socks out of a skein of Sundara sport merino in Blue-Violet over Cotton Candy. This is so much fun to knit; I like her sock patterns a lot. Think there's an Evelyn Clark Sock Pattern fan club out there somewhere. I'll have to join.

My Kate Spades came into the optician's last week. DD#2 says they look better on me than the old Escadas; DD#1 says they look modern, unlike the Escadas. So why do I miss my old Escadas, which didn't even fit as well as the Kate Spades, so much?

Helping The Ships Project

Some of you may know that I knit hats for our troops overseas through a group called The Ships Project. When I started knitting for them, I had no idea how many devoted and talented knitters were busy knitting hats, slippers, scarves, gaiters, etc. for these young men and women. The mods shell out hundreds of dollars a month in postage to send everything. I've been donating monthly, then it occurred to me that knitter want to make hats for this and other charity- or non- projects. I started designing simple hats that knit up quickly in worsted/Aran weight yarn to raise funds for The Ships Project. I'll try to put a new hat or other item a month up on the nav bar at left. Patterns are $3.25, payable using Paypal. Right now you e-mail me and I invoice you, then send you the pdf file. Help is always an e-mail away. I'm trying to chart and write text for patterns, and any corrections from knitting readers will be welcome.
First up is the Anchors Aweigh hat. I have the Trees hat pattern done, and the Sand Rib Mystery hat nearly done (it's still a mystery to me how I'll tackle the dec rows). I have at least 4 more patterns floating around in my head.