Last Friday I got word that a former co-worker is pregnant. After a brief search through my stash, I decided no particular yarn was calling out, "Baby gift, baby gift." So I decided to take matters into my own hands and spin up something more appropriate. I opened up the first of several bins holding my fiber stash and this immediately caught my eye:



Wouldn't it have caught your eye, too. I mean it's kinda bright, huh. It was actually dyed by Margene during the class we took from Kate at the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair in early September. I shared my extremely dark, hand-dyed roving with her, and she shared her retina-searing richly dyed roving with me.

The goal here was to spin up a nice DK weight yarn and knit up a quick hat. If all went well, booties could follow since there's plenty of roving.

After plying up my two bobbins of singles, I came to the conclusion that I am genetically incapable of spinning anything heavier than fingering weight yarn. Instead of the 60 yards or so of DK weight that I was aiming for, I found myself with approximately 180 yards of fingering weight:



What do you think? Will the hat make the child look too much like a match head? On the other hand, I guess I could call the colorway, Don't Play With Matches.

Blind Squirrels

I have a friend whose favorite expression is, "Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes." The expression came to mind when I was browsing through the new issue of Knitter's Magazine today. I was surprised to find a wonderful sock pattern designed by Candice Eisner Strick:



Definitely worth the cover price of the magazine which is otherwise somewhat mediocre.

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