One

Going to work every day means I have to walk past my patch of front yard and look at the dead grass and the stems from the chicks & hens that I didn't clean up in the Fall.  It's a pathetic sight.  We had a couple of warm days when I could have gone out and tidied up a bit, but I didn't.  Yard work isn't my idea of fun after a hard day at work.  But I figure I have time before I really have to do something about it.

So imagine my surprise when I saw this:

And this:

I adore Spring.  Pretty flowers and a chance to wear sweaters instead of coats.

And speaking of Spring, remember that little trip I took to String (the yarn store) and I bought two really bulky yarns?  Well, they became something.  I borrowed some US #35 needles from Joyce and took that skein of yarn with me to lunch:

An hour later I had a cowl called Kimbo which is being modeled here by Sanja:

Here's the one I made on Tuesday past being modeled by Anna:

And lest you think they are the exact same cowl, here they are together:

The yarn is Riviera and each cowl used one skein.  The needles are US #35 and the pattern is Kimbo, which I couldn't find online, but it's the same as this one, only I cast on 9 stitches.

The only problem was that my cast on row had 9 stitches and my bind off row had 17 or 18 stitches, so on the last row, I reduced my stitches to 9 and sewed the ends together, but you can do a 3 needle bind off if you wish.

The blue cowl went to Sanja, she was leaving for home this evening (she lives in London, England)  and I imagine it'll keep her neck warm during her flight.

I think joining the Ravelry group 12 in 2012 was the best thing to happen to me.  I can commit to 12 small projects in 12 months easily and I've already made April's project in March.  I'm ahead of the game for once.

Now back to my sock.

Helix, You Saved Me!

Some time ago (a year or so) I went to the WEBS site and saw some yarn on sale.  Clearly I had lost my mind because when the package arrived, I not only didn't remember ordering the yarn, but I didn't like it.  Where was my brain that day?

I purchased one skein each of Elegant Yarns Athena lace weight in (for Pete's sake) pink and blue:

It's as thin as sewing thread and not my favorite pink.  I don't know what I was thinking or what I saw that made me buy this.

To further my spin into madness, I also purchased two skeins of Rozetti Polaris in (disco) etoile:

Really, does this even look like yarn I'd buy?

Enter my Aunt Joan who works at a hospital in Maryland who told me in November, December, January and February that she needed a hand knit to auction off at a fund raiser for breast cancer research.  Her only requests were that it be handmade, some version of pink and it doesn't have to be anything fancy.

Her last call was to find out what progress I'd made since the deadline is April 15.  Yikes!

I did a hunt and find for a US #5 needle that was missing and found the above yarn in the 'I'll never use these' bin.   They finally had a purpose.  I held the two yarns together to make my project.

Yesterday I started on the Helix scarf.  It's a little something that is handmade and has pink:

OK, so it's a little 'disco', but it'll do the trick, hopefully.

So I owe a special thanks to WEBS for selling me this yarn that I turned my nose up at, to Sojourn Knitter, for giving me two skeins of Cascade 220 in pink that I didn't use (but may still), and to Joyce, for making the Helix scarf about 10 times already.

Whew!  I just might make the deadline.