We Have A Winner, and some Knitting

As promised, I had my folded-up pieces of paper with the names of the chenille pillow contest entrants ready by 8:00 P.M. last night, and drew the winner, Tactless Wonder, Mary, the knitting bilingual librarian from Tahoe! I felt like Santa letting her know, as her most recent post was about hauling all the family packages, including hand-made stockings, off to the post office to be mailed (did you know that yesterday was the U.S. Post Office's busiest day ever?). Now, she can look forward to a gift coming her way.

Speaking of gifts, I sent off my Better Pal package last week, hoping that my recipient won't feel too inspired to play Nancy Drew.... I mean, I had to mail it from within the same state, and one of my goofier moments of December was not noticing how much personal information was revealed in the new (supposedly secret) hotmail account I created for this endeavor. I have changed that, but she may know who I am and just be too polite to address it. Anyway, she can expect some lovely, knitterly holiday giftie-thingies and, of course, yarn! It has been great fun trying to figure out what to give someone I don't know, but at least I have had some good ideas trying.

As for other gifts, I received the most wondrous little present from Sallee, the famous Knit Nana. She sent these darling little knitter notecards:

This is one of a series of six different very trendy knitting designs... it will be great fun using them in the coming months.


I also managed to dampen and pin out my eyelet Versatile Scarf this afternoon. Here, you can see that, somehow, when making one of the tie ends, I got off track, wove around a bit, and ended up further from the center than the other... a design innovation.
That's my story, and I sticking to it!

I took this close-up so that you could admire the beautiful colors in the handpainted alpaca... thanks again, Margene.


Margene was also the one who pointed the way to this pattern, which includes three variations (and yes, it's true, none of the variations have uneven tie ends - like I said, a design innovation). Blocking makes the design appear more like a little shawlette than a scarf, but I do really like how it can be worn several different ways, and started the triple-eyelet version in the Cestari yarn reviewed in yesterday's entry. I probably won't need to block it and the design, color and weight are all different, so it will "wear" in a different way... fun!

I have come to the conclusion that Fiber Trends is my favorite source of patterns, from the unique lacy shawls through all sorts of other items to the felted clogs and ballet slippers. If only there were enough time to make all of their fabulous designs (and the myriad others on my list).