Thank You, Shar & Dave!

As is my wont, I've been hoarding the yarn gift certificate that my brother and sister gave me for Christmas last year. :-) Last Friday, though, there was a sale, so I headed over to go find pretty things.

This was the first:



Lovely mercerized cotton for a beaded scarf. I love how sleek and shiny cotton is. I've been holding onto this gift certificate with vague thoughts of finally learning to knit with beads, and this color called to me. I'm thinking a gradient of orange/salmon/yellow for the beads? Something fiery? I don't want it to look too Christmas-y (ie. no silver or gold) and I'm not really seeing white or black in my mind's eye. I don't have a pattern yet (may try to make one up?), but I'm hoping to make it to Beads and Beyond in Bellevue on Saturday. I'm amassing rather a collection of red scarves, so I probably should have branched out, but this was too lovely not to get. Instead I may just need to find more black sweaters to wear them with.

My second purchase was this:



Gorgeous dark green Cascade 220 for a hooded vest. I've been thinking of knitting one since September, though my original yarn of choice was a highly variegated Manos del Uraguay in Rosin (#26). The color was an amazing mix of dark roses, almost to brown and purple, and I thought it would make a great vest in a basketstitch. Unfortunately, they only had three skeins. Since then, I've been lurking about and seen over ten versions of the color, and none have been even remotely as saturated or beautiful, so I've kind of given up on finding it. The hazards of kettle-dyeing. Luckily I didn't buy the ones they had assuming that I could find a matching batch later!

In any case, I still want my vest, so this is a great substitute. :-)

So, Merry Christmas '04 to me -- thanks, Shar and Dave!