hellooooo, nurse!

Greetings from happy pal central! Yesterday I got a wonderful package in the mail from my Secret Pal, who is awesome! S/he sent me some wonderful heather gray sock yarn (Swiss sock yarn that is so legit it comes with extra reinforcement thread in the package) and TWO bars of organic dark chocolate! Bliss!

Thank you Secret Pal!

I am looking forward to making some stylish fancy socks with the yarn. It will be a new challenge for me to do some interesting stitch pattern with the socks, since I usually knit pretty basic desgins with self-striping yarn - now I get to work with fancy textures, too. I was thinking of something fancy from the Vintage Socks book.

It will be a good diversion, because I'm mired in a design project right now that's got me a bit stymied. I bought this beautiful Kathmandu aran yarn back in October when we were visiting Maine, and had a very specific, neck-down raglan sweater with deep ribbing at the waise & 3/4 sleeves in mind for it. But when I started knitting up a swatch, the yarn started screaming, cardigan! I want to be a cardigan!

So I'm starting from scratch on this one. The handle is nice, but a little bit tweedier than what I had imagined, so I'm looking to do something more tailored and jacket-like, but with some pretty detailing. Not too fussy, just some nice shaping and maybe ONE decorative detail. But this is not my forte. I'm much better with wild bright funky kids' sweaters. Making this one for myself - something that I will actually want to wear - is going to be a challenge.

On the lighter side of distracting projects, Saun is the greatest and has posted step-by-step instructions on how to make a needle case. HOORAY! My DPN's are out of control - I think I may be spending this weekend in front of the sewing machine.