Power outages.

The culprit? A very large, very old oak tree decided to come down right across our lines. Quite sure all the storms and super windy conditions had everything to do with it.

Come Away With Me - MCN Fingering

Beaujolais - Merino Fingering Superwash

Desperado - MCN Sport Weight

Character - MCN Fingering

Between outages, I was able to squeeze a few skeins into the dye pot. There will be a Shop update tonight at 8:00 p.m. EST.

A February swatch……. Aslan Trends Invernal yarn. More details to come.

Two days. Two finished objects. 

Shocking, I know. OK, I’ll wait while you pick yourselves up off the floor.  

What a sport Mr. P is - modeling Felicity for me. Though, I imagine if I would have told him the name of the pattern he would have politely refused. Shhh. We won’t tell him.

• Pattern: Felicity
• Yarn: Plucky Knitter Merino Superwash Worsted
• Needles: Size 6 and 8

Followed pattern as written, except went up a needle size. It was coming out more toddler sized, as opposed to something more suitable to a teen/adult, but going up a needles size did the trick.

• Pattern: Gloria Cowl
• Yarn: Crumbs handspun and Posh cashmere
• Needles: 9 US (5.5mm)

The droop is just right. 

Big thunderstorm went through last night - woke to **gasp** no power. So decided to go stash diving and found fun handspun from Crumbs and a skein of pink cashmere from Posh. Cast on 76 sts and used size 9 (5.5mm) needles. Once I decided on yarn, neeldes, etc. took about four hours. Had our power not gone out in the middle of the night I would certainly not have finished a cowl today, in addition to Felicity yesterday (amazing how much knitting, reading, cleaning, etc. you can actually get done when you aren’t browsing mindlessly and hitting the refresh button…but, I digress).

Hope everyone had a lovely, relaxing weekend. Thank you for visiting my sale. Don’t forget… free shipping on anything and everything through midnight tonight, Tuesday at Noon.

I don’t know what to say except that I am overwhelmed with gratitude with the sweet, kind and understanding responses that I’ve received regarding the yarn base issue. Is it any wonder why I think you guys are so lovely? Again, I can’t thank you enough. Now I think I need to come up with some sort of fun cowl pattern for the sportweight version - what do you think?

On another note - Spring has totally and completely sprung around these parts (I know, it’s a little late, but this is the MidWest) and Mr. Plucky is hard at work on the patio garden. Don’t you just love a guy who works in the garden?

And, I realize this may come as a total shock, but I still knit! Really, I do.  It’s not all yarn dyeing, yarn base angst, teen drivers and their Volvos and gardening. I am this closeto finishing…. well, can you guess? Hmmm. I’ll keep you waiting. Maybe I can finish it up tonight and share tomorrow. Then, back to the No Purl Monkey. Wouldn’t do to have that start talking to me again.

Still with me? Ok. One last thing - as requested, I dyed up a bunch of Summer of Love (in the MCN Sport Weight that I thought was fingering weight, but I digress) and it is now the shop. Which means that as soon as the fingering MCN arrives I will dye that up and let everyone that was interested know. In the meantime…. these lovelies are up for grabs.

These and lots of other lovelies have been added to the shop.

Hippie Chic - 100% Merino Superwash

Roman Holiday (Thank you Julie!) - 80/10/10 MCN Sport Weight

Bob was moritifed. “You don’t know how to do Algebra????? Sure you do. X + 1 =???”

Ok. So apparently I know very basic Algebra.

• Pattern: No Purl Monkeys
• Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug - Vincents Apron
• Verdict so far: LOVE.

When **gasp** your husband asks: “When you are going to start knitting more sweaters? You know, you will never get good at it if you don’t practice.” Thank you, Bob, for pointing that out to me. (Oh, and yes, Mr. Plucky’s name is Bob).

Think my sweater fiasco of 06′ has left a scar. (Yes, there was a sweater knit back in October 06′ - pre-blog. Too big. Gauge issue I am sure. The main issues being that I did not do a gauge swatch and then proceeded to knit a size too big for me).

It’s not for lack of inspiration. I’ve got inspiration. Here, I’ll show you - check these out:

• Look what Emily made!
• Flint Knits - Wow.
• Kaari by Darktrico - I love the neck line and the simplicity of the sweater
• Tilted Duster  by Parikha - Gorgeous! Or, even a Rusted Root - Love her modifications.
• Look at Annie’s Juliet - so pretty and flattering
• And dear Gina - encouraging me to finish my Flair (acutally have a couple inches of this done but have oh so conveniently misplaced my pattern).

Oh, to be able to pick-up the needles and decide to just do something like this:

So, now my question to you is. For someone who considers herself a pretty solid intermediate knitter, but is afraid, soooo afraid, of garmet knitting… what should I do first? I need help. And hand holding.

I have enough Malabrigo to make a Flair, Jo Sharp DK to make a Cavern or anything that calls for a yarn such as Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool (enough yarn in two colorways), and 10 skeins of BSA sportweight in the Licorice colorway and BSA in colorway 525. What’s a gal to do? HELP.

As far as finished objects go. I did finish up a couple o’ easy peasey ones this weekend. Yet another Slouchy Copy Cat in Malabrigo worsted, blue graphite.

And this fun little ditty. The XO UO Cowl from Knit Lit.

Based on this. I couldn’t resist a Grace Kelly shot.

I used some Malabrigo chunky I found when I went searching through my stash along with some handspun (also found in the stash) purchased off etsy last winter.

And, my socks in the snow as they have come to be known are this close to being done. Which means I get to cast on for a new pair - yeah!