Random Friday

I'm doing *stranded* gloves for my first time at working gloves. Oh no, I couldn't do just plain old 1-color gloves for my first stab. Bah. Fingers in stranded knitting are my new definition for "fiddly." Seriously, even Bunny didn't require this much messing about. I see now why large sweater size swathes of stranding are attractive - because it's mostly a flat surface; needle changing required only after many many stitches. Instead of say, 3.

Oh yes, and I'm off by a stitch so I gotta rip the whole pinky out tonight. GRRRR

The yarn is this amazing merino-alpaca blend from some Denmark company that has just randomly shown up at the unfortunately-located-2-blocks-from-my-work yarn shop. And oh, I am in love! It's a pleasure just to knit with this stuff - so soft, with a bit of alpaca hairiness, but still some sproinginess from the wool. The colors are, I admit, all on the muted side, but I chose a gorgeous heathered brown and a kind of cross between turqouise and steely blue that I think complement each other nicely. It just *feels* luxurious.

It's fairly evenly spun and makes some gorgeous colorwork. Luckily for me it is not quite up in arm-and-leg territory in regards to pricing. Hey, cheaper than Koigu! (Sigh. I know that's not very cheap). I bought 2 skeins on impulse for the gloves. I left the skein of Handmaiden unicorn-hair-and-fairy-dust I'd been oggling on the shelf, and told myself I had some self control (ha)

Sorry, enough with the yarn adoration. (Should you wish to be sucked in, the label says 'Isager 2' and it's a 50/50 alpaca/merino fingering weight 2-ply. Here's a Ravelry link. Oooh, look at that, a Knitter's Review article! Although, I really disagree with the "sport weight" designation for this yarn; it's definitely a fingering, and a light one at that. I'm working on 0s/2.5 mms, getting probably 8 stitches to the inch, and it's not a compact fabric.)

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I'm coming down off the local plague that everyone in my office seems to have gotten. A nice little head cold of which I feel grateful I only picked up a light case (I slept for 6 hours yesterday, during the day). Now my sinuses are all full of gunk and my voice is echoing around my ahead and sounds all sad and wimpy. Bleh. But I think I'm definitely working towards just the regular set of dribbling nose and sneeze allergies.

Happy Halloween! Yo ho ho and a bottle of nasal decongestant.