Just Another Manic Monday

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I mentioned that I’m really enjoying knitting the Celtic scarf, right? There’s something about cables that just makes me feel like ‘I can cable, therefore, I am’. It is very empowering.

I may not have been doing a lot of knitting over the past several months, I have been doing some knitting shopping. For example, I did take advantage of Knitpicks’ book sale recently. Into my hot little mail box came the following:

Inspired to Knit by Michele Rose Orne

A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting by Cat Bordhi and

Expectant Little Knits: Chic Designs for Moms to Be by Suzanne J. E. Tourtillott

I love them all. I am particularly enthralled with the Inspired to Knit book right now. All of the designs are gorgeous and many, many of them I would like to knit someday. And you, my fellow knitting bloggers, will be asked to help remind me of that every now and then.

Two sweaters in particular really speak to me. The Winter Wonderland sweater is, simply, divine. It is way more complicated than anything I’ve tried before. The yarn called for is Blue Sky Alapca’s 50% alpaca 50% merino hand dye. I haven’t felt it yet but it sounds as though you’d be wearing a cloud. This sweater will become a goal for me over the next couple of years. The other sweater that I adore is the Snowdrift cardigan. Although I would knit it longer (the pattern sits at about waist length), I adore the heavy, heavy cables in the sleeves and on the collar coupled with the smooth texture of stockinette stitch. Wow. This book has really blown me away. And those two patterns are just the start.

Yes, I really like the other two books as well. I’ll rave about them later this week, ‘K?

I’ve been knitting at the kitchen table as Iain naps. The window was open behind me (it’s got up to 27 degrees Celsius here today!) and I could hear the dry maple leaves blowing around behind me on the back deck. This sound always reminds me of Rivendell from The Lord of the Rings movies. In the scenes in The Two Towers when Arwen and Aragon are separated, there are lovely dry leaves blow around the Rivendell scenes, to intensify the metaphor of the ‘Fall (as in the season) of the Elves’ in Middle Earth. I would love to have a house where one wall opened up so that the leaves could blow through. I love that sound. I also love the fact that I’m able to knit a Celtic cable that reminds me of those movies. Yeah me!