Presents!

Recently, I won a competition run by Knitabulous, and on Monday I received something truly fabulous in the mail...


It's two skeins of Louisa Harding 'Kimono Angora' and a skein of Louisa Harding 'Kimono Ribbon' yarn in the same yummy colourway, all beautifully presented in a perfectly sized box with a red snowflake design on a white background. The accompanying card hasn't come out too clearly in the photo, but it actually has lots of detail which my camera failed to pick up, and co-ordinates beautifully with the yarn.

I really hope that the stunning range of colours in this yarn will show up well on everyone's screens, as they all work so well together. Unfortunately, the luxurious softness of the yarn simply won't photograph, so you'll just have to take my word for that. ;)

Thank you, Knitabulous!!! :)

As a scarf seems to be the obvious thing to make with the yarn -- that, and I really want to make it into something which will be in contact with my skin -- I decided to search the internet for inspiration. Those of you who've seen some of my comments on this blog and elsewhere probably won't be surprised by what follows. ;) As I really love searching for things like this, I'm going to share the results of my searches here.

First up, I found a scarf which was knit in the Railroad Knitting stitch pattern from Sarah Bradberry's website using the 'Kimono Angora', with strands of the 'Kimono Ribbon' woven through the tracks created by the dropped stitches. The end result is simple and stunning, and I really like it, but I just know I'd end up snagging the strands of ribbon yarn whenever I wore it.

Next, I came across a spiral scarf knit with just the 'Kimono Angora' using a pattern featuring short row shaping, and a ruffle scarf which used both yarns. However, as I knit Amanda Blair Brown's 'Ruffles' scarf from the 'Scarf Style' book in red Cleckheaton 'Angora Supreme' last winter, I decided to keep looking.

Then I discovered a scarf knit in 'Kimono Angora' using the Echarpe scarf pattern, but, believe it or not, I knit one of these last winter too, this time to showcase a hank of beautifully hand-dyed yarn I bought from Marta's Yarns, which it did admirably.

So I continued searching, and this time found a couple of Misty Garden scarves, knit from 'Kimono Angora' using Jo Sharp's 'Misty Garden' pattern from the 'Scarf Style' book. This still wasn't quite what I was after, but the rippling pattern of the 'Feather and Fan' stitch seemed to be heading in the right direction, so I started browsing through my copy of this...


... in search of an alternative lacey, rippling wave stitch pattern to use for my scarf. The strongest contenders at the moment are these four stitch patterns...


I'm leaning towards the 'Twisting Vines' pattern at the moment, but I'd love to hear what other people think would work best. Whichever stitch pattern I end up choosing, I'm thinking working the scarf as blocks of eight rows of 'Kimono Angora' separated by smaller blocks in the 'Kimono Ribbon' yarn of either two or four rows -- chosen at random, of course, to echo the random dyed yarn -- would work well. I may even toss a coin to decide how many rows to knit each time I change over to the 'Kimono Ribbon' yarn. ;)

Continuing the theme of 'presents'... Last Sunday was Mother's Day, and I was definitely spoilt by my family...


Michael had given me most of my Mother's Day presents in advance this year -- the fabulous new mobile I wrote about in the previous posting was actually one of them :) -- but, on the day itself, he also gave me the lovely red carnations and the Instant Lottery ticket which can just be seen hiding amongst the flowers. Plus he cooked dinner for us all, and brought some cheesecake home for dessert. :) Katherine gave me the cute 'Wallace & Gromit' soap dish, which I was surprised to find waiting for me on my chair when I went to check my e-mail. Amanda came over to see me, and gave me the Season 1 DVD set of 'Gilmore Girls' -- she even sat down and watched the first four episodes with me before she had to leave -- and three Lindt 'Petits Desserts' chocolate blocks to try -- Yum!