In Which There is Yarn to Dye For

It never rains but it pours.  This week I met up with my sister for ice cream, and she gave me a lovely birthday present.

Sock yarn, from her amazing friend Christina at Deep Water Dye Works.  And also, more knitting books.

Rather amusing, in fact, since I've already made the Baby Blanket Moderne pattern from Mason Dixon Knitting by improvising it from photos.  It'll be interesting to see what the actual instructions look like!   And is it possible to have too many stitch dictionaries? I think not!

I'm plodding along with i-cord, at an excruciatingly slow rate, probably because I'm so enthralled with the new socks.  This is the best photo I've gotten so far, and it doesn't do the yarn justice.  (This one is the Ghost of Christmas Past colorway from my friend Holly at Fish Belly Fiber Works.)

With all this new yarn filling me with excitement, I really need to finish that i-cord and move on. Because I am experiencing a frantic desire to Knit ALL the Yarn!

In Which Yarn Happens

So, there I was, peering into my mailbox, expecting the usual haul of bills and junk mail, when what should I find but a package.  A package that squished.

In addition to taking lovely photos of their vacation trip to Norway, my sister-in-law and her family have acquired souvenir yarn.  It seems that my charming young nephews Jack and Dash thought that Aunt Robin needed yarn.   They know that I knit:

Here they are modeling their Christmas mittens.

I'm thinking that colorwork is in order.  I've been wanting to do a pair of colorwork mittens for myself-- and a Norwegian-style pattern would be quite apropos!

In other news, my traveling socks met some knitting opportunities and got finished all in a rush. I wore them yesterday.

I've cast on the next pair, but I'm having trouble getting a decent photo-  I'm still getting used to the new camera, I think.  Also, it's a yarn that really needs daylight to show off its subtleties.  And since the days this week when it hasn't been pouring, I haven't gotten home until after dark, good light has been in short supply.

Vest, you ask?  Miles of i-cord.  Miles.  *exeunt knitter muttering*

Let Them Eat Cake

Last week I found out that one of my coworkers and I share a birthday.  What else could I do?  

Bonny butter cake with chocolate butter frosting.

Okay, I could have restrained myself.  But with an exceptional pretext like that, I had to bake. Fortunately my coworkers were eager to help me with the results.

...now I'm thinking maybe I should eat lightly the next few days.

Spring, Technically

According to the calendar, spring is here.   According to me...well, it's dragging its feet getting here.   While much of the snow has melted, the grass is still brown, and there are still snow-bank remnants suppressing the crocuses.  And this afternoon at lunch my husband looked out the window of the restaurant and said, "It's snowing."

"No,"  I replied firmly.  "I disbelieve. I'm done with snow."  Apparently firmness was all that was required.  There were no snowflakes to be seen when when we finished lunch.   It was still cold enough that I wore my mittens, but I was heartened to see my first crocus in a flowerbed almost ready to bloom.

We were out in western MA to visit with in-laws, so naturally I took knitting.  I'm doing finish work on the vest- finally cast off the 344 stitches of the bottom edging and am knitting the second sleeve edging.  After that, a zillion miles of i-cord edging and it will at last be done.

It's a little unwieldy though, so I got more done on the socks today.  Here they are:

Nice warm colors for a spring that mostly hasn't been.   I was also amused to note that the color of these socks- which I started on the Dallas trip- are surprisingly close to the colors in the pretties  I brought home with me.

Clearly I had leaves on the brain, don't you think?

This week isn't expected to be a whole lot warmer than the last one, but the days are longer, the cats had some time on the sun porch over the weekend, and I know that however hard winter tries to cling, it's doomed.  I just wish it would doom a little faster!