Matchy-matchy

Well, I was otherwise preoccupied and managed to miss my own blogiversary on February 1 -- I've been at this, more or less, for three years now. Well, everybody go have a piece of cake.

Meanwhile, the knitting beat has gone on. Here is my most recent sock, a nice little self-striping number out of JaWoll Aktion. Again, it's going very quickly but since I put it down about a week ago to work on something else (described below) it's been languishing in its little plastic bag.

Last May I went through a sock-yarn-purchasing frenzy and bought several balls of various self-striping yarns. When the dust settled, I noticed that two balls seemed almost identical in their color schemes, but since I liked both of them just shrugged it off. I finished the first one last month (the Kaffe Fassett socks) and the JaWoll socks are the second one. Below, I put them side by side and find that they're not identical, really, except in a couple of the color choices.

The colors are more accurately teal, milk chocolate and cafe au lait, but the light washed them all out.

The project that has grabbed my attention since Friday has been the Fern Glade beret in the winter edition of Knitty dot com. I had plenty of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool left over from the Lotus Tank, and the color was perfect to be all matchy-matchy with my favorite jacket, especially if I wear it with the scarf I bought in Cardiff, Wales and the matching gloves I got in London.

The colors are all washed out here because of the light; the yarn is golder than this, the jacket is dark brown corduroy, and the scarf and gloves are a nice, rich pumpkin color. Anyway, I'm about half-way finished with the larger size of the beret. The lace pattern is working up really quickly, and the project is holding my interest -- it's actually a very fun knit. I've got a dinner plate all picked out to stretch it over, and then we'll see if my head is a beret-able head.

Friday I found some gorgeous powder-pink roses on sale, and picked up a small bunch. Look at the petals' curly edges. Of course, in this picture they look golden, but they're really a delicate pink. They make a lovely little bright spot on our kitchen table.

I hope everyone had a nice Arizona Statehood Day, or for those so inclined, a nice Valentine's Day.