Vintage Velvet #3 - The Untold Story

• Five skeins Muench Touch Me #3642
• Jimmy Beans Wool
• US8
• Vintage Velvet designed by Lisa Daniels
• From the book SCARF STYLES

1. A close-up of the finished knitted scarf, before felting and drying:



2. Another shot of the unfelted, undried scarf:


3. Here's the scarf right out of the washing machine after two 12 minute wash cycles (hot wash; cold rinse) in a zippered pillow case with two pairs of faded jeans for balance and agitation:

4. The finished product after 40+ minutes in the dryer and some fan time along the back of our sofa:

5. Same as above:

But all is not perfect in Vintage Velvet Land. Some odd little black bits are working their way out of the felted stitches. I think it's the yarn core showing itself. I'm clipping madly and crossing my fingers

Red Scarf, Blue Screen of Death

I thought I had it beat. My annual Springtime Computer Explosion didn't happen this year. I actually sailed through April and May without losing a single piece of electronic equipment to the mysterious powers that apparently flow through my fingers. The television lived, the radios, the MP3, the printers, the laptop. They not only lived, they thrived.

I thought it was over. The curse had been broken. Peace reigned in the House of Chaos.

Well, think again. This has been a week in hell. First I saw the Blue Screen of Death. Then the computer resurrected itself. Then as I tried a midnight back-up (which took eleven hours; don't ask) I received a message that said, "There is no hard drive."

Huh?

If there's no hard drive, how can you be leaving me a message on my computer screen? Don't I need a hard drive to send and/or receive that message?

It found its hard drive again later with a) patience and b) loud swearing.

And then I embarked on another round of frantic backing up which ended ten minutes ago in the happy message: "Close all programs. Restart computer. Run Setup. You are missing .dll extensions."

I. Am. Not. Happy.

At least not with computers. I am happy, however, with my knitting. I finished my red Irish Hiking Scarf for this year's Red Scarf project and I am delighted. What a perfectly designed, perfectly satisfying piece of knitting. No wonder it's so popular. All you have to do is knit one pattern repeat and you've got it down cold. And oh do I love cables. I could cable all day. I could cable in my sleep. I could cable when I should be writing. Cables are better than chocolate. And when the cabled scarf is going to the Red Scarf project, it just doesn't get any better.

I'm also working on a Vintage Velvet (Scarf Styles) in cream Touch Me. More cables! Big soft squishy yarn that will gently felt into the most gorgeous antique-looking soft swoony velvet imaginable.

This week knitting was the only thing that kept me from throwing myself into traffic on the Garden State.