So-Called Striped Noro Scarf...

Chances are, you're here looking for the striped Noro scarf I made a few years ago. Thank you Jared for linking over here so long ago (great job on the new site, btw). It might be a ghost town over here, but lots of visitors keep finding their way wanting to visit that now-famous scarf.

So many people have contacted me wanting to know specifics like exact needle size, colourways used, what I wore while making it... Truth be told, I wasn't fussy with the details at the time, and I really don't remember them now.

There's a bounty of great examples out there, so pick any two you like and go to town.

Nobody home

Boy, for all you visitors that are surprisingly still dropping in, this must be the most disappointing stop in all of blogland. Not a peep in over a year. Kindest regrets, the day-to-day has steamrolled everything in its path. It's a veritable no-man's-land over here - most every link is broken, comments are filling up with spam, boy have I ever let things slide.

Hello? Anyone home? Hello???

What have I got to show for the 1+ year hiatus? Not much, I'm afraid...nothing bigger than a breadbox, anyway. All married up and busy with the grind. The fiddle efforts continue -- maybe in five years I'll be as competent a fiddler as I was a knitter. So many things to tackle, I tell's you...wish I had another set of hands.

And with that, I expect perhaps more of the same will found in these parts. Thank you to all of you who keep stopping in and subscribing - so sorry to disappoint. I'll be back again, I'm sure.

Fellow Ontarians, happy Family Day!

Distractions

Try as I may, it's hard to stay focused. So much is going on these days, and I keep getting distracted. The land of knitting keeps drifting away. It's been a few weeks now...so so sorry to those of you who are waiting to hear back from me on emails - I finally got to it today, thanks for your patience.

For the questions that came through Blogger comments, most of them are related to the striped scarf. Since I can't reply to you directly (good ol' Blogger!), I'll try to cover the answers here with some proper details.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't keep the labels for the Silk Garden, so I can't tell you exactly which colours I used. My best guess is colourways 201 (I'm pretty sure about that one) and 230...but it's just so hard to tell with Noro. 36 stitches wide on 4.5mm needles (7 US), 1x1 rib, alternating balls every 2nd row, 4 balls in total. I'd say 4 balls is about right for a scarf in Silk Garden. My goal when I chose the colours was to pick two skeins with lots of greys and browns, and two that were more colourful.

For the rest of you wondering where I've been? Oh, so distracted. Besides fighting off the urge to craft craft craft (putting off wanting to learn to weave, sewing, quilting, learning to silkscreen...oh, if only there were more time in a day!), I've got two major projects in the running in the moment.

Fabulous design like this makes wedding planning almost ok

Getting hitched!...and learning the fiddle. Rob and I decided back in May that we were ready to jump in and tie the knot. We hadn't given the actual wedding much thought until the new year when our families and friends started in on us. Since then, we've been in full-force planning mode, preparing for the big day: August 25.

I wasn't really all that into it at first, I'm fairly anti-wedding and all the consumerism that comes with them, so I found the whole idea pretty daunting at first. But, then I started to get into it. It started slowly with Martha, with a short detour into the land of bride-y magazines (yecch...great for millionaires), and then miraculously, after ages of feeling like I couldn't relate to anything out there, I found weddings in blog land.

What a relief! Such great things out there. I'm all for a great big party with fabulous decorations, but sweet lord, spare me the chocolate fountains, hummer limos, satin bows and chair covers and give me something with some AESTHETIC! Glad to have finally found it. I was seriously worried that there wasn't anything beyond indiebride out there.

For those of you on the same road, or even just planning a giant dinner party, may I point you to some of these great finds:

• Something Old Something Blue
• Oh Joy! here comes the bride
• DIYBride
• Love Made Visible
• The Hostess with the Mostess (more of a host resource, but still applicable)
• Style Me Pretty
• Off-beat Bride
  

As for the fiddle? A distraction as well...hard to tackle something like this without jumping all in. I decided it was time to put my grandfather's fiddle to use, and keep its heritage alive. Much to the dismay of my neighbours, I'm afraid.

And knitting? Let's just say there's lots to catch up on.

I dream of empty baskets

I came home in a fury today. I've been finishing up projects behind the scenes (details soon), and I've hit a roadblock on what to start next.

Thing is, something of a stash is holding everything in limbo. Honestly, I can't do it. I can't buy more yarn, I can't, I can't, I can't. I won't. You'd think it would be freeing to have loads of yarn, but if you ask me, it's an absolute burden.

It's everywhere, and most of it has no purpose at all. I find it stifling to have this much yarn, and even more bothersome trying to come up with what to do with it.

Odds and ends: your time has come.

So, in a fury of stash frustration today, I walked in the door and went straight to every basket, box and drawer in the house. I dumped everything out on the dining room table and divided yarn out into assigned projects, a charity pile, and odds and ends.

But before I get to the fun projects, this one or two balls business has got to go. Every last bit of the odds and ends went into this basket. No more nicely arranged, carefully packaged and stored with coordinating weights and colours. Nope. Organized and out of sight - no more!

I mean business, this has got to end. This basket is going to sit and stare me in the face, right there on my coffee table (sorry, Rob) until I figure out what to do with it. And if it sits there forever?

It won't.

A dozen days: day one

This, I think is a fun idea - shoot and share twelve or more pictures throughout the year, one picture for each month. Tag and share your photos in the 007 - Snap a Dozen Days Flickr group photo pool, and you're done. I love it. A project that can be completed in 20 minutes or less? Yes, please, sign me up.

So, January 2007 - here you are. Cold and snowy, with winter coats everywhere.

Cold. Snowy. January.

I walked past this coat a number of times this weekend while in Toronto on a quick road trip. I find the idea of a coat hung on a fence absurd in these cold January days, and suffered the cold to take take the shot. Winter came on with a bang this year; before this recent drop in weather, I was beginning to doubt it would ever come. But, after weeks of backwards weather and the first green Christmas in my lifetime, January proved to be winter worthy indeed.

A bit overdue on this one... I made this simple scarf for Rob before Christmas with two different colours of brown and grey-ish Noro Silk Garden to match his winter coat.

1x1 alternating rib scarf in Noro Silk Garden

While it does match his winter coat, this scarf has spent much more time complementing my winter coat. A simple but satisfying knit to say the least. 4 balls of silk garden, 1x1 rib, alternating every second row with a fringe. No cables, no stranding, no fancy stitches, just plain and simple.