Stashbusting and happy dancing

Over the weekend the link to this pattern by Mary Lou was posted over on UKHK. Several people have made one recently and they look utterly fabulous. It's a steek boa - you knit up the pattern as a scarf then unravel each side up to a stitched seam where the ribbing section starts. You then cut the loops to make a lovely fringed effect.

I spent some significant amount of minutes at work today, mentally going through my stash to find yarns that would be suitable. The only one I fall down on somewhat is a fuzzy yarn. The only mohair I have is some Adriafil Baroque, lovely but the wrong colourway. Since I'd already decided this would be a stashbuster, I've got the following yarns out tonight which I think will work:

Thick yarn = Adriafil Graphic (red/pink/multi)
Fuzzy yarn = some multi-pinks hand dyed wool from the natural Dye Sudio (not fuzzy but pretty :-)
Shiny yarn = Jaeger Grace in bright pink (shiny 20% cotton yarn)
Plain yarn = Stylecraft 100% wool DK in deepish pink (originally intended for Wavy from Knitty but I'll find something just as nice for that)

I also got out some Colinette Graffiti which would work well as the thicker yarn, it's in deep/bright pinks, oranges and black. I think I'll stick with the Adriafil on this one though. Should be a nice companion project to Latifa, while I regroup my thoughts re hats!

Some happy dancing tonight too, as for a while I've been trying to get my head around the "book" way to hold the working yarn. Each issue of Simply Knitting also shows this in helpful photos, but the way I learned, was to throw the yarn and in doing so, take my grip off the right needle briefly. I've had several failed attempts to guide the yarn using my index finger, leaving me quite grumpy - I'm not that well coordinated at the best of times - but for some reason tonight I've managed multiple rows and am getting the hang of it! At first I ended up with very tight stitches on the needle, but now they are pretty much OK. Probably not a stellar event in the cosmic scheme of things but for a clumsy so-and-so like me it makes me very happy :-)

At this rate I'll have figured out crochet soon too LOL!

Hazel, sorry your cat keeps presenting you with mice (no doubt he/she thinks they are bringing you gifts!). I've had to shoo 2 different cats out of the garden in the past couple of days, as they were taking an unhealthy interest in the birds. We put seed and suet balls out for them and have a number of birdbaths. The cats don't really have a chance as the birds sit and leer and squawk at them. This morning there was a cat sitting on our garage roof, and a huge skein of geese flew over all honking away. You should have seen it craning up to look trying to work out if it could get to them!

The Fyberspates yarn is in the shade "Wild Foxglove", purples and greens mainly which looks very pretty. I think Get Knitted have a picture of a glove knitted up in this colourway. I was surfing and found the actual Fyberspates site, and blog. They will be having a sale in their shop this week apparently.

Rain, I am so in agreement re "House"! What an excellent show. I only discovered it just before Christmas so have missed almost all of season 1. Hugh Laurie is an absolute revelation in this. I do believe I am somewhat smitten.

Thank you dottyspots for your very kind offer to translate the DROPS patterns from Norwegian :-) I am sure there are a lot of knitters out there who would be very grateful! (I couldn't visit your blog unfortunately as I couldn't view your profile, if you see this can you send me the link?)

Hope to see some of you at Woolfest, I think we'll make it, hubby was OK with the idea (although pondering spending an extended time in "a huge wool shop" LOL!). He is actually very good at picking out colours!

On that note, I shall sign off for it is late, and I need sleep. My current book kept me reading for way too long last night!