A cheerful yellow

The desert was beginning to really bloom when I drove around Arizona last week. Saguaro cacti get little crowns of flowers around the tops of their stalks, but they were just beginning to bud so here's a prickly pear blossom to make you glad on Eye Candy Friday.

For most of my life, I haven't been a fan of the colors yellow or orange. I couldn't tell you why, maybe it's a childhood prejudice or something. When I was in first grade I remarked to my teacher that my yellow crayon was so bright it could almost hurt your eyes, so she took mine away from me. (Since then I've learned to keep even the most innocuous opinions to myself.) But for the past several years, I can't get enough of colors like taxicab yellow or true orange. Just holding an orange in my hand can cheer me immensely. My fiber choices have gravitated toward orange and yellow hues, but not for anything I'd wear -- I don't wear orange or yellow well. But I'd use an orange scarf or something like that. Or orange socks. And I love those yellow cactus blooms.

The project of choice for the past couple of days has been the Emperor's sweater. I think I'm making progress on the sleeve and I should be since it's not that big around and the gauge is four stitches to the inch. I hope I don't get the dreaded Second Sleeve Syndrome!

It really all started when the Emperor asked for a fair isle vest. I explained that if I did a fair isle vest it wouldn't be finished until the next year, so I started on a solid-color vest for him. I chose a yarn I nabbed from the sale bin at our LYS, and not long after I started I realized that if I made a vest out of that yarn, I'd compromise the stash. There was enough yarn for a sweater with a little bit left over, or enough for a vest with a lot left over and nowhere to go. Then, the photos of seamless hybrid sweaters on Zimmermania seduced me into abandoning the vest for a more "challenging" project and now the Emperor's sweater won't be finished until this winter.

So much for keeping myself on track. Next think I know I'll be casting on for that forbidden Revisited Chanel sweater. I'll post pictures if I fall prey to that temptation.