While I was visiting Serenity Knits after the Brandon Mably workshop, I picked up a couple of small items. One of them is a luscious skein of Hand Maiden Casbah in the Midnight colour way. It’s 80% merino, 10% cashmere, and 10% nylon. A 115 gram ball has 325 metres on it and would typically knit up at about 26 stitches = 4 inches on 3 mm needles. My gauge is always on the tighter side and is different because of the pattern I’m doing. I thought it would make a great dressy scarf for my hubby. He has a warm winter scarf but it’s kind of ratty because he really only uses it for shovelling and snow blowing. I thought he could use a nicer scarf for dressier occasions. The softness of the merino and cashmere against the skin is heavenly.
I thought the colour way was appropriately masculine and sophisticated. The pattern I’m using is of my own design. I wanted it to look like dimensional blocks. The picture gives you a better idea (that's just a gauge swatch - his scarf will be bigger). It’s all stocking alternating with reverse stocking in an attempt to get the scarf to lie as flat as possible. I could have used garter in places to make it lie flat but garter stitch has a very different gauge and uses more yarn than stocking stitch. That’s me, always thinking practically and frugally.
I thought the colour way was appropriately masculine and sophisticated. The pattern I’m using is of my own design. I wanted it to look like dimensional blocks. The picture gives you a better idea (that's just a gauge swatch - his scarf will be bigger). It’s all stocking alternating with reverse stocking in an attempt to get the scarf to lie as flat as possible. I could have used garter in places to make it lie flat but garter stitch has a very different gauge and uses more yarn than stocking stitch. That’s me, always thinking practically and frugally.
My dear husband realizes how important an event like this is in my life that he didn’t want me to miss it even to have extra time with his mother (whom I happen to get along with very well, by the way). So it was a hellishly long driving day for my poor hubby, but hey, how many times in your life do you get to meet Brandon Mably and Kaffe Fassett and have them both sign your books and you get your picture taken with them and I won one of the door prizes! Kaffe’s latest book, 
Note that the intense basting is because I was intending to hand quilt and I used polyester batting. Ruthie suggested that I use cotton instead of polyester batting. She said that in her experience, there’s (what she believes to be) a static build up with the polyester that causes the sewing machine to miss stitches. I tried doing a net search on this with not much success. In fact, a lot of sites were still advocating using polyester batting. I don’t know if anyone else has knowledge in this area. She was also disappointed in the way I had folded the backing edge over the front and pinned it down. She said I was not supposed to do that. I said, it depends what book you’re reading, but reassured her that that was not going to be my binding and I just rolled it over and pinned it down to keep it out of my way; that I was going to make a separate binding strip and attach it. That appeased her.
It has several mechanical…issues. When I got it, the thread tension knob was already not working properly. I thought that rather than destroy what’s left functional of this precious machine, I should just get a new one; hence, the decision to buy a new machine. Let’s see if I can finish that quilt anytime soon.
I love hats! One day, I noticed that in my varied assortment of hats, I didn’t have one that also covered my ears. I also have a lot of purple present in my other hats and decided I needed to expand my color range to better accommodate my fall wardrobe.
I went a little simpler on the closure than I was originally planning because of time constraints. I made bobbles with buttonholes – nothing fancy. No time to make a purse strap either; oh well, I guess it will have to be a clutch. Overall, I’m pleased with the results.
