I've been working away on various things. I finished the Kool Wool hat (and, disappointingly, the pattern claimed that it only took one ball - it actually took one and a part. Luckily I had bought several balls of that color). I think I'm also going to try the slip-stitched hat in the same book - which uses three different colors; I might be able to make more than one by changing up what is the main and what are the contrast colors).

I'm also nearly done with the first Caribic sock, which is also for the Dulaan box.

I've also been working away on the Barley Sugar Column sock:



It fits well. I'm getting back more into making "tight" socks that are fairly formfitting on the foot.

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I got the fall Patternworks catalog yesterday. Now they, too, have begun offering their "own line" of yarn. I hope this doesn't signal the start of a "Yarns ONLY by Patternworks" change in their offerings. Because, as nice as it is to have reasonably priced BASIC NATURAL FIBER yarns (I am looking at you, Hobby Lobby, and all your insane variations on the novelty yarn sold as "yarn bee." Yeah - bee - because those yarns are as scratchy as an insect's leg.) - still, it's nice to have a choice of different company's offerings.

And they're offering a new Artful Yarns yarn called "Reality." As in, "Show."

I'm trying not to snark here. But I fear the Artful Yarn concept may have jumped the shark. Because, you know, I don't consider reality shows to be that artful. Or rather, "artful" in the bad sense of "artful" - as in lying-but-pretending-it-is-the-truth. In the early days of Artful Yarns, we had Jazz, named after famous musicians, we had Portrait, which alluded to famous paintings. And we had Museum. And we had Cinema. (True, we also had Circus but I was willing to forgive the clown-related color names in that line).

But we never got "Poem" (one of the lines I think would work very well: they could have Haiku, and Villanelle, and Sonnet...) or Composer (Honestly - I would wear ANY yarn named after Antonin Dvorak, almost no matter what color combination).

We got "Candy" and "Pastry" which kind of strayed into the K1C2 style of naming things, but that was okay, I guess.

But now we have "Reality."

I will say I feel a bit vindicated in that my first reaction is that all of the colorways are rather unappealing to me - sort of drab and greyed-down, and not greyed-down in a good way. They remind me of cityscapes under smog.

Yeah, I know I'm a snob, but I'd like to see a "Poem" yarn still, and maybe a "Composer," or a "Folksong" (oh, what could be done with that...). But "Reality"? What's next, "Talkshow" with colorways Oprah, Jerry, Conan.....? Or "People with Political Opinions Screaming at Each Other": Al F., Bill M., Bill O., Rush...

or maybe they'll do a "Blog." I'd never consider myself grandiose or well-known enough to deserve a colorway named after me (but heck, how it would tickle me) but maybe they would do "political blog" (probably some kind of red-and-blue theme), craft blog, weight-loss blog, teenage-angst blog (lots of black in that colorway), book-review blog...

But I don't know. Artful for me has kind of worn through the definition of what I would really consider art.
***

I also spent part of yesterday afternoon playing with stash. Sometimes when I want to start something new but feel like I have enough projects going already, I wind off balls of yarn:



This is the pileup from yesterday. It's pretty much stash-yarn, with the exception of the green-and-white variegated yarn in the back. That's the new KnitPicks bulky handdyed Wool of the Andes. I'm going to use it to make yet another of those multidirectional diagonal scarves that I am so obsessed by.

The colorway is called "Ireland." I could not resist - I love green, and with my heritage, I wanted it.

I don't know why I'm so fond of the multidirectional diagonal scarf. I've made many of these - some for gifts, one for charity, one for myself. I love the pattern. I think it's because it has the "simple comfort" of knitting a garter stitch scarf without being, well, a plain garter stitch scarf. And it makes up beautifully in variegated yarns, which I love, but which can be tricky to knit up attractively. I was really tempted to start the scarf last night after Youth Group, but I didn't.

The yarn on the left- it looks red and green but is really fuchsia and green - is some of the Tapestry I ordered years ago from Elann. Originally I intended it for tricky complex socks, but then I realized that (a) heavy boot-type socks are really only wearable about three weeks out of the year here and (b) they would have to be handwashed, and in fact, Classic Elite recommends that if you use more than one color of Tapestry together, you DRY CLEAN the garment. And I am not dry cleaning socks.

So it's going to become a hat (the fuchsia) and either a scarf or a hat and mittens (the green) for the Dulaan box. I have more colors of this - a grey, and another green, and a turquoise, and a couple of colors of orange. By having it wound off, it's there for when the urge to cast on for something hits.

I also wound a bunch of sockyarn - the Lorna's Laces (middle) is in the color "watercolor." I think I'm going to use some kind of a slipped-stitch pattern with it so that hopefully the variegated won't muddify. (It looked a bit nicer in the skein).
Next to it is the green "Fern Fiddlehead Scarf" yarn - I bought the kit from Morehouse after looking at it for like a month and sighing over it.

And on the far right are some "small artisan" handdyed yarns - on the bottom, Lisa Souza's "Wild Things," which I'm not sure yet what to do with - maybe a very simple lace, maybe a fancy rib. And on top of it is my favorite - Fleece Artist in "Rose Garden." This looks NICER in the ball than it did in the skein. In fact, I had to pick up the newly-wound ball of yarn up to my cheek and croon over it a little, it was so pretty.

What? You don't ever sing to your yarn? Well - remember, I have no babies and no cats. So sometimes, you just need something to fuss over a little bit.

I'm just going to knit it up into a pair of simple socks. I don't feel the need to do lace or slipped-stitches or cables with this one.

(But I dreamed last night that I had five cats. Two grey adult cats and three kittens: a Siamese kitten, a yellow-cat kitten, and a grey tabby kitten. I also remember at one point in the dream remembering with horror that I HAD the cats and realizing that I hadn't even been to see them - they lived somewhere kind of like a boarding kennel - for days. Okay, what part of my life am I neglecting? That dream can only mean there's something that I consider important that I'm neglecting...)