Presents

I turned my dissertation into the Dean of the Graduate School yesterday afternoon. It's DONE!!!!! So what's time is it now? It's time for the presents! I celebrated the event by stopping in at the Yarn Haven on my way home. My intent was to purchase another skein of CTH SuperSock yarn since I'm so happy with the socks I'm knitting from my 1st skein. The problem was I *so* tired I couldn't get excited by any of the colors I saw, or to be more precise, not excited enough by any one color to be able to choose *only* one (there were several I really liked). So I started looking around the shop and noticed Sandy had gotten in some new lace yarn from Skacel. Of course the pink caught my eye, but I didn't want to knit another pink shawl just yet as I need some diversity in my colors. Fortunately there was a very pretty soft lavender that appealed to me. The deal was sealed when I glanced up at the Crystal Palace Kid Merino that was the shelf right above the Skacel Merino lace--the Kid Merino was is a fuzzy melange of soft lavenders that matched the Merino Lace perfectly! Suddenly I knew that's the yarn I needed to knit the Spring Things Shawl--you know, the shawl that I cast-on and frogged umpteen times in different yarns with different needle sizes and haven't been happy with any of the choices to date? That shawl!

Well I cast-on yet again and this time I think it's going to work. I so hope I have found the right combination. I've never had this kind of trouble before. Usually it's just the opposite--I have more good choices available to me that the really decision is which one should I use first. I thought about this a lot over the last couple of days and have come to the conclusion it the specific lace pattern that is the majority of this shawl design. I've had troubles with this pattern before when I was trying to knit a scarf out of some lovely Habu Textiles Silk/Mohair kusa. I started and frogged this scarf 3 or 4 times before relegating this magnificent yarn to the frog pond for an extended visit (it's still there). I didn't realize that Spring Things used this lace pattern as I only really "saw" the lace in the border. Had known this in advance I would have chosen another shawl pattern I think, but I do like this shawl, so I'm hanging in there for now.

I have a couple of pictures of my new yarn acquisitions and the latest start of the Spring Things. I know, it looks pretty OK, maybe a little too lacy as the Skacel Lace Merino is *very* fine yarn, but it's OK. It's doesn't look like SPL's shawl in the pattern, but it's still OK. But what is noteworthy is.... (drum roll please!) the crisply clear, close-up photo! It's my graduation present which was delivered yesterday too! I told you I got *lots* of presents yesterday;o) It's the digital camera of my dreams. All the options I deem essential in a good camera. It's a Fuji FinePix s700, which has a 10x optical zoom in addition to the customary digital zoom features and it has a 2x macro feature which allows me to shoot an object as close as 4" away and be in perfect focus. This will be awesome for taking pix of wildflowers and knitting, two of my favorite subjects. The price was fantastic too (<$300) thanks to a today's special on HSN. So this means I'll have lots and lots of pictures to enhance my otherwise wordy blog. Presents are a good thing!