Some Days, You Need a Very Big Scarf

It's not precisely the season for outdoor photo shoots. It was just a couple degrees above freezing when I went out to take this shot (in, because I am practical, my leaky shoes and no sweater to speak of), and starting to rain (or is it sleet? not heavily enough for me to decide), and of course, being just shy of 4:30, the sun is well convinced that I can't see it through the cloud cover. It's mostly right.

But really, that just means it's the perfect weather for wearing this.



I don't know what possessed me. The thing is four balls of Merino Stripes (the grey and charcoal colorway, I think 04, but I managed to lose all four wrappers), knit diagonally, and just shy of 9 feet long. If I throw it around my neck and don't wrap it anywhere, the edges drag on the ground. Honestly, there's only about a month out of the year when I can pretend to wear it. Mostly it wears me.

At the Gates of Madness

I've posted pictures of this before; it's the most popular pattern I've written for the yarn store. I've taught approximately six classes based around it (it teaches knitting on two circs, cables, kitchener, thumb gussets...) in the 5 months I've worked there. One of the women who took the class a couple months ago came in today, and told me that she's knitted seven pairs of these since the class.

This leaves me, which I think perhaps may be understandable, feeling validated.

Seven pairs.

Speaking of the shop, yarn has been awfully exciting lately. We donated a bunch of yarn we've stopped carrying, and brought in loads new more stuff... several series of Sublime yarns, Queensland Kathmandu Aran (a lovely tweed, soft enough I might even knit with it), Happy Feet, some new Jo Sharp yarns, some crimped baby camel... we also (finally) got in the 01 (white) color of Urban Silk. I'd been hankering after that since Skacel gave us samples of it, but it was on back-order for a long while. I've had a pair of gloves stewing in the back of my mind for months, and they will presumably be quickly reproduced in that.

Sock yarn has been too enchanting to me recently. I haven't been buying, but ah, the temptation when we got in some bamboo-silk-superwash blends. Somehow this sock lust has percolated from the back of my mind into one little, obstinate thought: what law mandates I knit socks in pairs? What's wrong with one-offs, as long as I have enough one-offs to alternate on both feet?

This way lies madness.

Bacon Scramble

Yes, bacon.*

It's an inexcusably bad shot, but my excuse -nonetheless- is that it's very hard to get an indoor shot of a slice of seven-foot long scarf, low on fat.**

Anyway. The dirty details: the scarf was crocheted from three skeins of Berocco Ultra Alpaca (2 reds, one white), plus some odds and ends of off-white I had lying around, on a size K hook. Nice and loose, but not too lacy. A gift for a close friend who cannot eat pork products for religious reasons. I couldn't explain all the elaborate in-jokes that have touched on this if I tried, but I'll give you this: I picked up the hook when he sent me a link to an image of bacon chocolate chip cookies.

I'm the kind of person who firmly believes in discordant taste combinations. But bacon chocolate chip cookies are -and I'm the official word on this, honest- wrong.

He gave me a package containing the communist party. And I mean that as literally as you can possibly imagine.

*Oh god oh god please ignore the rust splotch on my cast-iron crepe pan. It's gone now, and I've re-oiled the thing and hung it on its normal lonely hook in my kitchen.

**Someone mentioned in the comments that, if they crocheted, they'd be all over a bacon scarf. I didn't write up a chart, but after the fact I discovered a slice of bacon chart for knit or crochet. I hope that sets you on your bacony way.