Surprise again!

At last the moment some of you have been waiting for. As you know if you're a regular reader of this compendium of nonsense I participated in Ted Myatt's Fibre to Scarf exchange. Getting my scarf so quickly gave me extra incentive to finish the one I was working on, so by the end of March it was complete.

It started with 8 ozs of Bullen's Wullens in a mulberry heathered with copper. The blend was combed out so it was very easy to spin up. I opted to making it a DK weight so that it would be a quick knit but not so thick that you don't have much yarn to make a scarf. I came up with almost 400 yards of lovely 2-ply that after finishing was wonderfully squishy and promised to be warm.

The next challenge was finding a scarf pattern that would keep my interest. I chose Brooke Nelson's Column of Leaves pattern off of Ravelry for its interest and quickly memorized pattern. The yarn worked very well with the pattern to my pleasure.

And who is the lucky recipient? None other than knitsib Kate Winkler who I've known from the list. She's tickled about the scarf and the goodies I included, and very happy that spring has offered at least an opportunity to wear it before the weather warms up and she has to put it away. It was a pleasure to make it for you, Kate. I hope it gives you lots of warm enjoyment.

Mileage

The lovely scarf QueerJoe knitted for me is getting lots of oohs and ahhs. I can't help but share, it's so nice. Rodger of Abundant Yarn wanted to adopt it for his own, but I gently wrested away from him. He does look lovely in it, but then he has a natural ability to pose artistically.

I made a trip out to Canby to drop off fleeces for cleaning and processing into roving. One thing I like about heading out into the country is going into a Wilco, a farm and ranch supply store, to see what they have. You're not going to find a store with farm supplies in the mall, and since it's to provide things that help keep a farm running you find all sorts of things. I stopped in one, a brand spanking new Wilco in Canby, and browsed for a while. I found welding shields, traffic cones, horse tack, heavy duty clothing, gopher traps, a dozen kinds of brooms, and propane tank parts. I came out with a Brute trash can, a heavy duty feed bucket (larger than the usual buckets you find at the grocery store), long sleeved PVC gloves (excellent for really messy projects like dyeing fiber), packets of seeds, and cat litter. For a fiberholic city girl it's a treasure trove.

The secret project is getting close to completion. I have a couple more repeats of the motif then I can work on the final border. I'm on row 105 on the Queen Sized Queen Anne's Lace which is waiting for me to finish the secret project. In between knitting sessions, a few spinning projects are getting done. Last night was the plying of the last of the Miami Stripes yarn. A few more yards were added to the baby alpaca laceweight singles. Some alpaca samples were done up for StitchJones and I played with a sample of fiber from H.A.Y.

Surprise!

Today I came home to a box on the porch. A little one. One I have been waiting for from a very special person.

Back in January I received an invitation to the second Fiber to Scarf project hosted by Ted Myatt. This year I sent off 8 oz. of StitchJones' Anjelica BFL roving into the ether, albeit reluctantly because the colors were so nummy. I got my fiber and it's spun and currently on the needles, so I didn't expect a response for a few months. Imagine my surprise when I get an email from Queer Joe saying that he's the one who got the roving.

I'm an avid reader of QueerJoe's blog and knew he had participated in last year's F2S. So when he wrote that he was busy spinning and knitting a secret project I suspected he was doing it again. So I emailed him a teaser for one of the conditions for participation is that you don't blog about the project. Secret project indeed. Yes he was working on it and was enjoying it so much that he was nearly finished. Then not long after that he emailed me that he was my fiber recipient and the scarf was done. If you've seen his work, you'd understand my joy. His lace knitting is exquisite and his designwork fabulous.

I give you QueerJoe's Anjelica scarf.

To add to the fun he tucked in a bag (just the right size for a spinning project or socks) filled with tools, the remaining yarn from the scarf, a dpn case, and a jigsaw puzzle magnet with a sheep. More than what I expected, which adds frosting to this wonderful cake.

Thank you Joe for the wonderful scarf and goodies. And thank you again Ted for hosting this fun event. I better get cooking on mine!