The winner of the skein of Wool 2 Dye 4's Sparkle, dyed in the Pink Love colorway, is Holly, who commented:
What a great way to start out the new year-knitting a pair of pink socks for my daughter!!
I can't think of a better way to start out the New Year either. I hope Holly's daughter enjoys her socks!
If you need a little yarn inspiration to get the new year off to a good start, you've come to the right place! Leave a comment below and I'll have the kids draw a random name on New Year's Day to send this yarn on to. Make sure I've got an email contact for you, or come back to check and see if you've won! (My apologies, but I can only ship to a U.S. address)
This is a very special yarn from Sheila at Wool 2 Dye 4, one of my favorite places to buy luxurious, but well priced, undyed yarn. In addition to being incredibly nice, Sheila has the knack for sourcing some of the finest base yarns around, and she always seems to be first with new ideas. This yarn, Sheila's Sparkle, is a blend of Superwash Merino with just enough nylon so your knitted item will hold its shape, and a little bit of Stellina for sparkle. We aren't talking tinsel bright here — just enough sparkle to give your new pair of socks a little bit of whimsy. It's perfection and as an added plus, the yarn was lots of fun to dye. The give away skein is 438 yards of lovely sock weight yarn in Elliebelly's Pink Love colorway.
Thanks Sheila, for giving us another wonderful yarn to place with! In addition to the give away skein, I dyed a skein for myself, to use for Ellie's Barn Raising Quilt.
We've had a lovely and in many ways unexpected Christmas break around here, but I wanted to share some of the fun, albeit belatedly.
We had SNOW for Christmas.
We're not talking snow man quantities or even sidewalk cover, but it was fun and beautiful and made this a special Christmas.
We always use the stockings my Aunt June knit for each of us on Christmas Eve. I love them so much I have to put a picture of them up every year. (I'm sort of fond of the "child" too.)
We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with family and friends.
And the holiday was made complete by Hannibal, our Doberman's presence at the table. Unlike the cats and our other dog trouble, who as mere mortals have to jump onto the table to reach the food, Hannibal is so tall that he can just saunter over and grab a bite.
I hope your holiday, however you celebrated, was as wonderful as ours.
If you remember the knitting with silk hankies post from last month, you might be interested in the results of that little experiment.
Ellie and I are deeply and profoundly in love with the results, which are both soft and warm. Although we thought about a button closure, Ellie wanted to use a vintage pin her Godmother gave her several years ago. It turned out to be the perfect touch.
There is something wonderfully fun about pulling all the little silk cocoon hankies into a fiber that can then be knit with.
I plan on experimenting with this more over the holidays. I've dyed some more up to play with. I have plans to do a quick video to upload, showing the process of pulling them into shape for knitting. I'm hoping to convince all of you to join in with this, to see how many different ideas we can come up with.
Cute hat. Cuter (and now very happy) kid. This hat was easy peasy — I ribbed all the way up then decreased evenly around over the last eight rows in stockinette. I have enough yarn left to stripe some fingerless mitts. What could be easier or more satisfying?
Ollie, who is seven, is one of my favorite consumers of knitted goods because he is so appreciative. He tries to keep wearing them long after they are outgrown.
I decided on one last minute birthday gift for him-a basic hat. I'm using one skein of Elliebelly bulky Talia Merino in a paintbrush colorway. So far, it's all 2×2 rib. I haven't decided yet whether to do it like that the whole way up or switch to stockinette (or stripe? linen stitch, which looks great in the paintbrush colorways?) I'm fortunate this bulky yarn knits up quickly, as I've only got a few days left to finish it!
Harry is feeling very exuberant about knitting and wants to share his energy and excitement with all of you. And yes, that is a ball of the yarn I'm using for my cabled afghan that he has rolled up around in his excitement.
Sadly, Harry wasn't as excited with the results of the game as he had hoped, but that was a pretty amazing Roll Tide first quarter.