long haul

I toted this yarn all the way from Italy... well, it was in my checked baggage. But it traveled with me a long way to my stash. Left to right, the rusty laceweight, the DK weight heathered charcoal, the soft super-bulky, and the self-striping sock yarn.

The light for this photo is awful because it's too cold to go outside for any reason other than something to do with ultimate survival. On my second try for a better color capture on the green and gold bulky, I got closer to the real thing:

During my travels I noticed that scarves made from super-bulky multi-hued yarns such as this were really popular. I've never been a slave to fashion, but if I like something that's popular, well, then...

I used to wear a lot of black clothing, not because I adhered to any social group or wanted to make a statement, but because my hair and skin looked good when I wore black. Now that I work in a field wherein many of my collegues always wear black (to look dramatic and artistic, I suppose) I find myself gravitating toward colors -- for instance, while on my trip everybody else was in black black black but I wore autumn colors with a black accents. I also like to wear black clothing with a color surprise, like a scarf, blouse, or my long scarlet coat.

So, the weekend knitting is going to be that Celtic Tote from the winter Interweave Knits, and some more on that sock I started on the plane to Italy (I got the whole leg done... that's what not sleeping on the flight will earn you). True to my earlier suppositions, self-striping yarn is making for a fast knit.

The Emperor loves his seamless hybrid sweater, by the way. I washed it and blocked it, and all of the wonky bits smoothed out and it fits him really well, except for the sleeve length. I measured one of his favorite commercial-made sweaters, and kept getting 20 1/2 inches for the length. I tried the sleeves on him as I was making them, and that seemed like the right length. Tried on, the sleeves are about two inches too long. The Emperor just rolls them up and won't let me shorten them.

Well, I better git and git after a little housework before I sit down to some reward knitting. Our garage storage freezer quit on us and I need to cook a bunch of buffalo meat and freeze it before we lose it, although where I'm going to put all that stuff I don't know... it's turkey for dinner on Sunday, that's for sure!