ok, I’m done rambling in the title. Yes, Miss Dashwood is finally finished. I spent the better part of the last week in a state of indecisiveness on those darned ties:
* let’s try i-cord
* 4 sts i-cord is too thick, let’s try 3 sts
* eh. frog
* ok, let’s try the pattern’s version
* yuck. frog
* ok, let’s try i-cord again.
finally started them at the SnB the other night (as already mentioned), finished them yesterday, and decided there might be enough yarn to finish the ear flaps. nope, not quite. on the plus side, sitting on the table not too far from where I was knitting was the HP maroon acrylic - aha, this’ll be a close enough match (and that part will be hidden under the brim for the most part anyways). so I finished the ear flaps, and got one the tie & flaps attached to one side before I admitted defeat for the evening. (all that seed stitch will do that to a person, I think). so today I finished stitching it up, and it’s all packaged up with a congrats note and ready to be mailed to my cousin tomorrow. yay!

    
modeled by a St Pat’s Build-a-Bear. thought it was fitting since the lil one was born on St Pat’s day…

Went to the Burnsville SnB group tonight. Met Dawn, Margie? & Nancy. managed to make good progress on the ties for Miss Dashwood - one finished and a few inches on the 2nd one. Just need to get that finished up and it’ll be off in the mail. =)

I’m trying to decide what the next ‘main’ project will be. The curtains I was sewing are finally finished (last week, I think), and now I have an itch to sew more. I found a couple bits of brocade in the remnants bin, and am planning to make a needle case with them - just need to cut the fabrics to size and actually sew them. and then my double point needles will have a ‘proper’ home. yay!

I finished the hat part of Miss Dashwood today - just need to add the ties (and ear flaps, if I have enough yarn) and weave in the ends. the border edge is curling quite a bit - I don’t know if that’s fixable though.

Today was the Guild’s Yarnover event and also the Textile Center’s garage sale. Yarnover had a nice selection of vendors. There were a couple vendors with really gorgeous hand-dyed yarns. One was Silk Road North Woods (from St Paul) - they have really interesting blends, like Chinese cashmere, cashmere/silk, Chinese Bactrian camel wool, and camel/silk. They also have some really cool looking wood needles that are dyed or something. I think Needlework Unlimited carries some of their yarns. The other one of note was Lucky Noodle Yarns (from Minneapolis) - her ‘Softylofty’ yarn is SUPER soft. neither of them is online quite yet, but both have emails.

after browsing the vendors, I ran back to the car (did I mention it was pouring rain most of the day?!) and headed over to the Textile Center. by the time I got there, any yarn selection they might have had had been picked thru quite thouroughly, but I did find a few (old) pattern booklets from the ’70s (well, two are dated - the third the models look VERY 70’s, if not late 60’s era) - one is knee high socks (argyle & cable patterns) and the other two are sweaters/cardiagans with aran (and other) designs. About the time I found the magazine corner, they started shooing us out so they could prepare for the bag sale (everything you could cram in a bag for $1). I really didn’t feel like trying to go back in, so I headed out. (running across the street to my car, still in the rain)

I got on I94 and was headed home, but shortly after I switched onto I35W, traffic hit a dead-stop and then a snail-pace. *sigh* so I decided to jump ship and exited early - which just so happened to be the road that one of the LYS is on/near. unfortunately, there’s a lake in the way, so I had to drive around the lake (so much for the ‘perfect’ timing of getting off on that street). Happily, they had the Magic Friends pattern that I’d been coveting for awhile. I also picked up a couple ‘by the gram’ hanks (10g & 13g) of Koigu. I have no idea how much yarn that equals. (the 10g skein has at least 19 yds, by my crude measurement system. what does one make with the equivilant of half a skein of sock yarn?!) any suggestions?

  
the pattern books // a bit of the Magic Friends pattern

  
Koigu mini-skeins // close-up

I spent a lot of time today knitting on Miss Dashwood. I got into the ‘only a couple more rounds til I have 2″ and can start the decreases’ mindset, so was very determined to get to that point. Once I got to the decreases, I was in ‘I’m almost done, I just want to finish’ mode. didn’t quite get finished though - I have 11 stitches between the markers - almost to the ‘decrease every round’ bit to finish it off, then add the ties and earflaps (if I have enough yarn).

  
does the bobble on the far right not remind you of a badger? (maybe I’ve been out of WI too long - Bucky is haunting me)