Knitting progress

We took a short trip to the Sierras this last weekend, which gave me lots of knitting time in the car. I made good progress on the trumpet skirt. Soon I will start the increase rows to form the bottom of the skirt, and I don't look forward to that, since the skirt gets wider with every two rows.

I've also been making good progress on green gable -- it should be done sometime next week.

Three bags full

I took off from work early today to check out Stitches West 2008. I'd never been to a Stitches West before, and I must say, it was quite the sensory overload. I did not sign up for any classes -- I just bought a one-day marketplace ticket. It was money well spent -- I got all three of the bags of yarn at 50% off. One bag is Debbie Bliss cashmerino aran, another is Debbi Bliss cashmerino DK, and the pink bag is some Berroco Nostalgia.

The last of beige slouchy cardis

I've completed the last beige slouchy cardigan for a while. Well, this is a cardi-shrug, and it is oatmeal colored, but it's mostly a cardi, and it's sort of beige. I don't need any more of them in my wardrobe.
The pattern is by Shiri Mor, from the Knit.1 Winter 2007 issue. I made it a little shorter than the pattern, I knitted it in the large size but my gauge was smaller. The yarn is Plymouth Alpaca boucle, which is very comforting to wear -- all nice and soft. I used garter stitch instead of ribbing on the bottom and sleeve trim, but that's about all that is different from the pattern.

Green Gable and luxury yarn

I'm venturing a tiny bit into the world of "luxury yarn" by buying some Silk Maiden yarn from the LYS. I don't generally use what I would consider luxury yarns, but I could not resist this one. I've cast on for green gable because (1) most of the knitting blogosphere seems to have knitted it, (2) it looks great on most of them (3) its simple stockinette stitch will show off the colors of this handpainted yarn and (4) it hopefully won't need much yarn so it won't cost a fortune.

I've just noticed that I seem to be in a "beige phase" since most garments that I've finished or started recently are ivory/sand/oatmeal/cream/some-shade-of-beige. I'm not sure why this happened, but this is the last of the beige phase. After thise, everything will be in color!

Something quick and fuzzy

I recently cast on for the cardi-shrug by Shiri Mor in the Winter 2007 Knit.1 issue. This will be a quick project. I'm using a 10 stitches/4" gauge with this Plymouth Alpaca boucle yarn. I've always wanted to knit with boucle -- it has this nice textured softness.
Personally, I've never been fond of the short shrugs that end below the armpit or just under the bustline. They look odd to me -- as if someone ran out of yarn while knitting a garment, or worse, washed a sweater and shrank it too much. However, I do like the longer shrugs that end in the vicinity of the waistline. This is even longer --it falls to the hips, sort of like a carapace.

Progress on trumpet skirt

I took a short getaway trip to Las Vegas recently (Vegas, baby!) which meant sitting in airports and airplanes. It was a short trip, but all that sitting still provided lots of knitting time, so I worked on the fit-and-flare trumpet skirt.
There's not much to see in the photo, so I leave you with this photo of pastries from the Jean-Philippe Pâtisserie in the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Don't those pastries look just yummy?