Back to knitting!

It's been a while since my last yarny pictures. ... right? I have some now though. =)

This evening we will start out with my Coach knock-off scarf.

Recap...
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Chunky in 3 lovely colors, 1 skein each
Pattern: Misty Chunky Ribs & Ruffles, sans ruffles.
Needles: Size 13 Clovers
CO: 27... I think
Finished Length: ~91 inches

I ended up wearing it today. ^_^ While it shed profusely as I knit it, wearing it was a different story. The scarf seemed like it would just explode into millions of separate fibers at the slightest gust of wind, but, it stayed in tact and I have zero alpaca hairs on my sweater. Strange how that works. The scarf itself though is getting a bit fuzzy, but, it still looks good. My biggest worry now is that the ribbing won't hold (alpaca is definitely not the most elastic yarn) and I'll end up with a fairly flat scarf. I guess it would still be pretty cool though.
Overall, this isn't exactly the Coach scarf I saw... although my memories have since clouded over and I swear my exact Coach knock-off was hanging on the rack "on sale" for $200+ at the Coach outlet... Hmm. Yeah, next time the medium brown will be more camel and I'll use cashmere. ^_^ For now, I'm quite satisfied.

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My second bit of yarny goodness is my Beau sweater in Malabrigo Olive.

I'm still working on the first piece... the back. The ribbing is actually making it pinch in a lot, which shouldn't be a problem once I block and seam it to the front. I feel like it's taking forever though. I'm almost through 2 balls of Malabrigo and I only purchased 7. Let's hope it's enough.

It becomes more and more difficult for me to work on the sweater. I usually knit at night, in front of my laptop while catching up on my shows... I'll definitely have to blog about my shows 'cause there are A LOT. So, I'll knit a few rows on my sweater as the show starts, and then I'll just put it down and finish the rest of 40 minutes without knitting. I think part of the problem with the sweater is that, me, being the stubborn straight-needle-only knitter that I am decided to pick up the longest needles I could find... and, now they just get in the way. This makes knitting quite the chore. I may have to switch to circulars for the front and see if that makes me knit harder. I'm also still quite worried that my gauge is all off, but, we shall see.

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On Ravelry I started a "Malabrigo Junkies" group... I think I mentioned this already. Well, to build community and camaraderie I held a little contest with Malabrigo as prizes. Basically you just had to tell the story of how you met Malabrigo and that entered you into the random drawing. Originally I planned to award the winners with Mmmm from my stash, but, things changed, and I hadn't bought yarn in like over a week so I drove over to Fishbed and purchased some.

This is for the 1st prize winner. One of her favorite colors was hot pink--she mentioned that in in her profile--another great use for Ravelry. I figured Shocking Pink would be a great choice.

For 2nd prize we have a skein of Verde Adriana. It's strange that I ended up choosing colors I've already knit with. ^_^ During my browsing the awesome owner of the Fishbed Knitting mentioned that she had a few more bags of Malabrigo that she had not yet put out (she just moved into a new store). I went through them and came upon this beauty:

Mmm. Whale's Road. A fairly variegated blue. I love it. This was originally going to be the color going to the 1st prize winner... but, I couldn't resist it. Of course, I have no patterns in mind, but, I love it just the same.