New project time!

But first, more Twitterstream goodness. A guy dresses up as the (in)famous Nyancat and posts it on YouTube.

It occurs to me that a Nyancat halloween costume would not be that hard to construct: a pair of ears, a cardboard sandwich-board sort of thing painted to look like a Pop-tart (or for true non-stop nyan.cat authenticity, a piece of toast), and a rainbow cape. (Aren't the "pride flags" rainbows? A person could buy one of those and use it).

Not that I'd actually do that, you know. It's been a long time since I actually dressed up for halloween.

Or I can see a new "superhero" - Nyan Cat. Would have a rainbow "superman" cape. Not sure what its powers would be beyond flying. Maybe annoying evildoers into submission?

****

Anyway, last night, after quilting on the quilt for a while, I decided I wanted to start a new project. I had been flipping through the Fall 2010 KnitScene (which is, I think, the "best" issue, in the sense of having the highest proportion of things I actually want to knit in it). I saw the Oscilliscope shawl (a worsted weight triangular (but knit edge-to-edge) shawl that's actually kind of more like a big scarf.

I had bought yarn for this on my Longview foray last October, so I went and found the yarn, wound it off, and started.

The pattern is one of those patterns that looks wonky at first - or at least it did to me - but once I got going on it I saw how it worked. (There's a lesson in that. I have experienced so many things - lab procedures, ways of playing things on the piano, cooking methods - where you read about it and go either, "That will never work" or "I don't GET it" but when you just try following the directions, suddenly it clicks when you're actually doing it. I don't know if that's true of many people or not, but I do find in some cases just trusting the directions until you're SURE they're wrong (by having tried them) is necessary.)

I'm using a different yarn than the one called for - I'm using Berroco's "Lustra," which is a wool/tencel blend. I'm not sure I'd want it for a sweater or another right-next-to-the-skin type of garment because it has an odd texture - not exactly scratchy but kind of "synthetic-y" feeling. I know they say Tencel breathes but I get the feeling a garment made this way would be very warm and kind of heavy.

However, it's an extremely *pretty* yarn for something like this scarf - the Tencel gives it sort of a sheen (well, hence the name). The color is my standard greyish-green color that I seem to pick for so many things. (Well, the original scarf was kind of that color, and when I saw the Lustra in the grey-green color, I decided I wanted the scarf in that color).

I may photograph it this weekend - I finished the first 28 set-up rows, so it's going fairly quickly at this point.

I also started the right front on Potter a few days ago, I'm up to the point where you begin decreasing, but I want to be sure to work on it only when I can give it my full attention because of the whole "reverse shaping as written for left side" thing. (I also found buttons for it yesterday: JoAnn's has a whole line of "green" buttons, and there was one made of recycled plastic that looked pleasingly like tortoiseshell, so I decided to get those for the sweater. The added bonus is that they are quite lightweight, so they shouldn't drag down the front of the sweater.