Can there be a happier sight than this?

A boxful of goodies from Knit Picks!

This is Alpaca Cloud, laceweight 100% baby alpaca, in both Peppermint and Smoke. I’ll probably make a new Hanami from the Peppermint – this colour is closer to the pinks that I can wear. I gave the first one to someone whom the colour suits really well.

This is Wool of the Andes, 100% Peruvian highland wool, shade Hollyberry. Perfect for Hedgerow Coat!

I also got a bunch of the new wooden Options.

Yes, it seems my prayers have been answered! The Options Harmony wooden needles are made of birch, and despite the Technicolor effect (honestly – why couldn’t they just make natural-coloured wooden needles?), I ordered a bunch of them as soon as they came out. And now they’re here! And to my surprise, they’re not as migraine-triggering as I feared. In fact, they are quite pretty and much less bright than in the pictures.

I switched them on to my then WIP (which is now a FO) immediately, and in action they look mostly like rosewood needles.

They’re also very light and have the lovely warm feel of wooden needles. I love them!

You may recognise that the lace piece in the picture is the Mystery Stole 3 at its last stage. It’s now finished; photos to follow as soon as I get organised.

In between the lacy things, I knitted a sturdier winter scarf for my love.

Pattern: A generic sideways 1 x 1 rib scarf
Yarn: TitanWool Winner, colourways 3, 302 & 305, 47 g each
Needles: Knit Picks Options 3.5 mm
Size: 15 cm x 149 cm, unblocked without fringe

This was a nice and simple project. I knitted it sideways because I wanted long stripes and chose 1 x 1 ribbing to create an even surface that looks the same on both sides. The yarn, 100% merino wool, was not the softest merino I’ve knitted but nice and springy all the same. For some reason the black one seemed fluffier thant the grey ones while knitting, but it doesn’t pop out from the finished scarf.

I’m also on Ravelry now, got my invite last week – just in time for my 6-month knitting anniversary! Nice as it was, it also meant I had to face the daunting task of actually finding out how much yarn I have. It took me two days to go through my yarns and another two to catalogue my needles. Both tasks involved surprise moments as I kept finding stuff I’d completely forgotten about. Luckily they were nice surprises – I still like my yarns, and as if by magic I also seem to have forgotten how much they cost. Handy, isn’t it?

I still haven’t had time to do much there, but if you’re there, do come and visit me. My ID is Midori.

Finally, the stuff from the Finnish Handicraft Fair in Helsinki last week. Yes, she’s been buying yarn again! In fact, she seems to be carrying home more yarn than she has time to blog about! And would you believe it, nothing red. No, this time it’s all brown (and a bit of white):

Malabrigo Aquarella, shade Coronilla, hand painted pure wool. Lovely, rich chocolaty-coffee colours with a hint of gold and honey. It’s super bulky – the recommended needle size is 9 mm! I should have enough for a decent-sized scarf, or I could make a smaller scarf and a hat. Any pattern suggestions? I haven’t knitted anything from bulky yarn before.

Here’s a closeup of the colours:

Mmmmm…

This was so interesting that I just had to grab it, all of it. It’s Handpainted Boutone Pure Wool Yarn from Handpainted Yarn. The name comes from the small bulky bits that can be found here and there, and those along with the individually painted threads that have then been spun into a 3-ply yarn are precisely what makes this yarn so fascinating.

Incidentally, I’ve been toying with an idea for a sweater design for a while now, looking for suitable yarn, and this could just be it! Let’s just hope that 400 g is enough.

This is King Cole Merino Blend, 100% pure new wool. The white ones are for a friend, and the chocolate brown is for me. It’s soft, thin, anti-tickle and superwash, and I think it will make a nice pair of gloves to go with the Malabrigo scarf.

And finally a bunch of Hjertegarn Ribboo, 50% bamboo and 50% soya. For a corset top.

I’ve also bought some books:

Vogue Stitchionaries 1 & 2…

…and some Zimmermanns.

The Book Depository is fantastic! They have books for more or less US retail prices (which is a fraction of what books cost here) and free delivery. And a nice selection of knitting books. Could book shopping get any easier?

Now, amidst all this stash enhancement, I can just hear some of you wondering: is she secretly planning to open a yarn store, or does she still knit? While I do, admittedly, sometimes dream of running a yarn store of my own, no, I’m not opening one just now, and yes, I do still knit.

Here’s proof:

Pattern: Hanami
Designer: Melanie Gibbons
Yarn: JaggerSpun Zephyr Wool-Silk lace weight, shade Lady Slipper, 71 g
Beads: Gütermann Rocailles 9/o clear silver-lined
Needles: 3.25 mm bamboo straights & 3.25 mm Addi Lace circular
Finished size: 50 cm x 182 cm

This was a nice pattern to knit, although it seemed to take forever to get it done. It was my travel project and was mainly knitted in a car on various US interstate highways. (The long stretches on the Mojave desert were particularly productive.) Repeating the basketweave section for the umpth time got a bit boring, but other than that I quite enjoyed it.

I followed the pattern exactly except for the very end. There was a ruffle at the cherry blossom end of the stole that nearly doubled the amount of stitches and that I found a bit odd, so I just knitted a garter stitch edge like in the beginning. To balance it a bit, I also added beads to it so that both ends are now beaded alike. You can’t really see the beads unless they catch the light, which makes them look like little silvery rain drops at the end of the stole.

The yarn was lovely to work with, soft and silky, almost frail. So soft even that I can imagine it coming apart if pulled too hard. It’s the same weight as Wetterhoff Silvia, which I’m using for the Mystery Stole, but whereas Silvia is 70% wool and 30% silk, Zephyr is 50/50 and the higher silk content definitely pumps up the lux factor. This is even more evident in the black Zephyr; it has that silky shine that my MS3, knitted with black Silvia, sadly lacks.

Although actual cherry blossoms vary in colour from the palest white to very bright pink, this shade is perhaps a little too pink to portray the frail beauty of them, that passing moment when the whole world is suddenly filled with candyfloss before the fragile petals get blown away by the wind or beaten down by the rain.

I love sakura and the hanami season in Japan. I also like this stole. It’s a little too big and a little too sminky-pinky for me to wear it quite naturally, but I like it.

This part consists of a Knit Picks order that came in while I was away.

This is Shimmer, 70% baby alpaca and 30% silk. The colourway is called Turquoise Splendor, and turquoise splendor it indeed is. Perfect for a Peacock Feathers Shawl, which intrigues me although I fear it will be far too big for me. There’s also enough for a regular winter scarf, just in case I’ll never get to wear the Peacock shawl…

I also got some Andean Treasure, 100% baby alpaca, in the Embers Heather colourway. You may remember that I bought some of this earlier; I suddenly panicked that I didn’t have enough for a sweater. This is for my peace of mind.

Now for the real surprise:

Options and I are back together! Thanks to a very helpful tip from Domesticshorthair about a lotion that makes it all possible. It creates a temporary shield between my hands and anything I touch, protecting the skin from contact allergies. I haven’t tried it with the Options needles yet, because – surprisingly – they lack the size I’ve been using in my recent projects, but I’ve tested it with other metallic items and honestly, it seems to work. A miracle!

I’m really happy about this, as despite fervent re-stocking of my needle stash with state-of-the-art Addi Laces and whatnots I’ve yet to come across anything as good as Options. Addi Laces are nice, especially the tips, but the Knit Picks cables are simply unbeatable, and I love the idea of always being able to pick the right cable length. I do prefer working with wooden and bamboo needles, but I also like circulars and have not yet been able to find wooden or bamboo circs with decent enough cables and joins. My ideal needles would be Knit Picks Options and fixed circulars in rosewood, but until that dream comes true, I’ll be very happy knitting away with these.

This one should actually be titled “Goodies from America, the Prequel” as I got it a while ago. (And as you see, I have actually been knitting as well.) It’s JaggerSpun Zephyr Wool-Silk, lace weight, 50% fine grade merino wool and 50% tussah silk. This shade is Lady Slipper, a rather strong pink. I got some in black as well, enough for two scarves or stoles. I have no particular projects in mind for it but it’ll be there when I need it.

Other recent acquisitions include a yarn swift, a wool winder and an electronic kitchen scale, bought for the sole purpose of weighing yarn. It’s all in the tools!

Coming up: goodies from Helsinki, as well as my first piece of lace knitting. Stay tuned.