woocommerce-placeholder

Splendid Mail Day. Splendor Handspun Yarn.

Splendid handspun

This was in the mail today!  Six beautiful skeins of handspun from Laura and George at Splendor Yarns.  Isn't it lovely?

Splendid2

If you've been following along, you'll know that this was once some hand-dyed roving, here, and that Laura was kind enough to spin it for me.  Although  I have a gracious plenty of holiday knitting that needs to be completed, this yarn is so special and so pretty that it's calling me.  It's irresistible!  I think I'm off to look for patterns that would be nice for handspun.  If you have any suggestions, please chime in in the comments!

Splendid3

woocommerce-placeholder

The Drop Stitch Scarf

As a knitter, I either have a dreadful case of attention deficit disorder or I am a highly efficient, multi-tasker.  I'm never sure exactly which one it is.  I do seem to have a knack for working on multiple projects at a time though, and just this weekend, as I'm working steadily on my cabled afghan and almost ready for the finishing ruffle on my Far Away So Close shawl, I suddenly became infatuated with Christine Vogel's Drop Stitch Scarf Pattern.

I've actually been intending to knit this pattern since the first time I stumbled across it.  I like the airy look of the dropped stitches.  Last night I printed out the pattern and this morning I looked through the stash for a likely yarn.

Dropstitchscarf

I ended up pulling out some Elliebelly Basilisk in the Cleo colorway.  The yarn is similar to the pattern yarn in blend — 50% silk and 50% merino wool, but is a somewhat heavier weight, more of an aran than the DK weight Lady Godiva yarn from Handmaiden that the pattern was written for.

This scarf looks gorgeous in every photo I have ever seen.  But, I'm having my doubts as to whether Cleo was a good colorway choice.  I understand that this scarf requires significant blocking when finished to open up the pattern, so I'm keeping an open mind.  I'm worried that it needs more of a rainbow colorway though.  Before deciding on Cleo, I looked at some handspun that was in my stash and considered both  some of my own Alpaca that a spinner did in a DK weight for me and some unknown handspun, but rejected them both because I thought it might be too much color and pattern all at once. Now I'm wondering — did I pick the wrong yarn?

I'm going to go forward with Cleo.  It's a fun and simple pattern to knit and I need something easy and portable for travel the rest of the month.  The Afghan has become too big for a travel project and I need a break from the Barn Raising Quilts squares.  So Drop Stitch and I will travel together, and we will see how it turns out in Cleo.