What's On My Knitting Needles

Remember this book I got from my library? It's not due till Nov. 10, so I decided to start one of the projects in there -- the North Star Scarf. Since there's no way I'm going to be able to afford the qiviut yarn the patterns are written for in the near future, I checked through my yarn stash for something that I remembered my friend Don gave me a few years ago. Amazingly enough, I found the perfect substitute in the first bin I checked.

This yarn is called "Kinair" produced by Filatura de Crosa in Biella, Italy. The fiber content is 24% Nylon and 76% Super Fine Goat Hair. It doesn't specify what type of goat, but I'd like to think that perhaps it's from a nice little mohair-producing Angora goat like the one shown at the right. I wish you could feel how incredibly soft this scarf is--it's like petting a kitten or what I imagine the fur of a Pomeranian puppy would feel like. The really cool thing is that Don gave me a whole box of this yarn, so I have 9 more skeins still left to work with.

Here's a baby afghan I'm making for a woman I met at the Potholes and Prairie Birding Festival last June in North Dakota. It's for her first grandchild. They already know it's going to be a girl and she's due to arrive sometime around Christmas. It's about half-done and my goal is to complete it by Thanksgiving. I really like this pattern and someday, I hope to enlarge it for an adult-sized afghan.

Another work in progress is this "Snow Forest Lace Stole." It's been slow going -- there are 273 stitches in each row and 326 rows for the main body of the stole (almost 89,000 stitches!) Once the main part's knitted, there will be a lace edging added all around. I think I figured that this stole will consist of about 100,000 stitches upon completion!

I will get back to this project once the baby blanket's finished and my plan is to get it done and posted on my blog for the December "knitting for a worthy cause" auction.

On Monday, I started the last neck warmer from the hand-dyed 100% Alpaca yarn I bought a couple months ago. I can't remember for sure, but I think I've completed 8 or 9 of these in a variety of colors.

All of the neckwarmers are going to be available in my November "knitting for a worthy cause" auction. As soon as I get this one completed (probably in a week), I'll post them all for your bidding pleasure.

With cooler weather and shorter days now, my evening knitting time has increased and since I won't be watching much TV for the next couple weeks (getting tired of those political ads!), I should be able to get lots of knitting done.