Capretta

 

Yes!  We've had a few warm, spring-like days recently and one of them happened to be on my day off.  You know I spent the entire day outside, sitting on my butt and knitting.  It was glorious!  Okay, I did get up a few times to do about 40 loads of laundry, but otherwise, I spent the day sitting and knitting outside.  It was awesome!

I finished the pumpkin sweater and started a shawl.  I'll show you the sweater next week.  The fit is... well, let's just say, the sweater has a few problems.  (My problems, not the designers.)  I'll explain more when I show you a photo.  Before I model it, I need to gain about 20 pounds in the bust area and loose about 20 pounds in my arms.  I had a slight issue with my dpn vs my interchangeable needle gauge.  It's a good thing the pumpkin sweater is for Halloween becuase its fit is frightful.

But this shawl....

Oh my!  I'm using Capretta from Knit Picks and it's Heaven!  Pure Heaven!  The yarn is a merino, cashmere and nylon blend and, I just noticed it's also a superwash.  And now that I've noticed that, I'm headed straight to Knit Picks to buy more.  I desperately  need to knit a few more pairs of socks for myself.  Cashmere socks.  How decadent! 

Oh, and the yarn  is currently on sale!  Woo-hoo!

But back to the shawl.... I'm not following a pattern, just making it up as I go.  I knit a while, get bored with a color, add a thin light gray stripe, change colors and repeat.  My plan is to do some kind of lacy edge with the light gray and to knit each color until I run out of yarn.  Each skein has 230 yards so it should be a fairly large shawl.  

The yarn is so nice to knit with and feels so good in my hand, knitting a large, garter stitch shawl shouldn't be a problem.  It's quite meditative.

Three on Thursday - Happy Days

I'm feeling pretty happy on this fine Thursday morning and because it's Thursday, I'll share three reasons why.

1.  My daughter gave me this adorable little succulent.  I haven't planted it yet but it fits perfectly into this rarely used, almost thirty year old coffee cup.  Actually,  I may never plant it, or at least not until it's grown enough to need a larger container than this old coffee cup.

Eliot Capretta from Knit Picks

2.  Capretta.  More specifically, Capretta (#affiliate) in the Eliot colorway.  Knit Picks describes it as "golden rod" and "slate blue" but to me, it's more...  pond scummy colored.  Well, maybe not pond scum, but definitely pollen on pond water colored.  What ever.  I love LOVE it and can't wait to knit something with it. Now, if I could only decide what to knit.  I'd bought the yarn with socks in mind but I'm just not feeling it now.  A single skein of Capretta contains 460 yards of fingering weight yarn so I have a lot of options.  Too many options.  Y'all know how bad I am at decision making.  Suggestions, as in specific pattern names or links, would be welcome.

3.  The dentist.  So yeah, this one is a huge surprise.  I Hate going to the dentist.  My childhood dentist was a horrible, horrible man, as in, he was sentenced to 55 years in prison with no chance of parole horrible.  And he scared me for life.  But I've finally found a dentist that I like.  I can sleep the night before an appointment and I don't vomit the morning of with this new guy.  And he's cheap!  Because of my fear, not to mention the lack of dental insurance, I didn't go as often as I should have in the past and well, now I have a mess to deal with.  But like I said, this new dentist is cheap!  I received the estimate for everything I need to have done yesterday and it's thousands less than expected.  Thousands!  Thousands with an "s" less than expected.  I am a very happy camper.