Her name is Pinki!

Design: Maia Shawl designed by Lisa Naskrent of Crochet Garden
Yarn: Valley Yarns 2/14 Alpaca Silk in Raspberry Rose WEBS Yarn.com
Hook: Size H Crystal Palace Yarns Bamboo

Lisa Naskrent is a GENIUS!  Her lace shawl designs look so complex, but are amazingly intuitive and addictive. I had already made her Midsummer Night's Shawl over 4th of July weekend and fell in love with her, and it...so of course I bought this pattern the second it was released.

To crochet Pinki was to love her! She was my 2nd July 2010 escapist project.  We were in Vermont and my travellin' hooks weren't as pointy as I needed to work tiny single crochets with this yarn (which is a bit toothy and sticky, but very affordable and comes in a cone with great yardage = only two ends to weave in!).  Luckily, there was a little yarn store that had these Crystal Palace hooks that were pointy and soooooooooo much lighter than the whatever-metal-it-was hook I was using.  I fell in love with bamboo hooks!

I took a while to finish her, because i didn't want it to END!
Then I took forever to block her because she had a million points to pin out and I was lazy for a while.
Then I took forever to take pictures of her, because really, pix won't do her justice.  She's too big and beautiful, and her color cannot be captured by a cellphone.

Her name is Pinki, and yes, she was a showgirl.........at the yarn store.


DDOK

Playoff Socks

If you love someone, set them free?  Me thinks not.  Make them cashmere/merino socks and keep them and their feet loved and cuddled!  This yarn is so soft and strong, and gets better when washed, believe it or not!

Guys size 10 – 11” foot circumference, Slouchy ankle
Gauge: 8st x 11r = 1"

Needles: Kollage Square 5" DPNS US2 (2.75mm) 

Yarn: 1 hank (325m/115g)

 Handmaiden Casbah  (81% Superwash Merino, 10% Nylon,
9% Cashmere)  
colorway: Cedar

Best price/customer service/color selection/fastest shipping online: knitty-noddy.com
It got from coast to coast in less than 48 hours, people.  Unheard of!
(Evelyn will even wind the hank for you for $2! But this may change how fast you receive your order, of course.)


I paid for that service a few years ago for a 1200yd skein of Claudia's Handpainted Silk Lace.  Thought that was a good deal at the time, especially given that I had never worked with lace yarn...thread, really, and that I didn't have a yarn swift. 


Then I learned that I cannot trust a center-pull ball. 

I now have to wind yarn myself, by hand.  I am OCD, and need to know every inch of yarn before I attempt anything with it.  No time for hidden knots, inexplicable joins that alter a color-change sequence, etc. while you're in the middle of a project. 


Best to find the problems ahead of time - and Casbah had no problems from hank to chair-back to needles to wash to wear, which is delightful, especially after some of the major annoyances I've been dealing with in other skeins and hanks from other companies.


Working on non-fun socks for myself cuz my feet are froze, and I have 1 ball of K1C2 ty dy socks that's left to go.


DDOK

ObliviousKnits is mine

that's right...we googled it...as of now it's mine.
down down down
mine mine mine!