Spinalcat's Crafty Adventures

Normally I have a "rule" that I only buy fiber at Stitches West. My fiber stash is pretty big at this point, not to mention all the knitting and designing I should be doing with my own yarn in preparation for Sock Summit! I decided I would buy books this year. In the past, I've missed out on some of the stitch dictionaries I've wanted to buy. This year I snagged Omas Strickgeheimnisse and Twisted-Stitch Knitting from the Yarn Barn booth on Friday morning. Sunday during the lunch break from my lace designing class with Janel Laidman, I scored the last copy of The Haapsalu Shawl from the Village Spinning and Weaving Booth. I also got Heirloom Knitting there. I bought some handmade buttons similar to these at the Creatively Dyed booth. I think they are very Klimt-y. Here's the shawl I started in the lace design class. I need to keep going at least long enough to see if the way I shoehorned the stitch pattern into the triangle shape is going to look weird or no...

My startitis at the beginning of the year has started to pay off! I'm still somewhat afflicted. I've been getting completely obsessed with the idea of starting certain projects. The Linen Stitch Scarf is a Churchmouse pattern we've started carrying at Yarndogs. After helping a customer pick out colors for her scarf, I decided I had to do one too! This one is going to be a shop sample for a few months, so you can go visit it yourself if you'd like. I knit this in 3 balls of Claudia Fingering. The fuchsia and the red are actually both the Rubies Playing colorway, but hugely different dye lots! The variegated color is Just Plum. The Pleiades scarf is the February project for the Dream in Color Dream Club. This is a club that operates on the yarn shop level. Shops that sign up for the club get a shipment each month of an exclusive colorway and a pattern. This month, the yarn is Starry. Those of you who are very astute may have realized both these scarves are knit...