What Do I Know?

As I was knitting away on this, I loved the yarn — Blue Sky Suri Alpaca, what's not to like? — but the pattern? Well. This was time I wasn't going to get back. But my newly minted 16-year-old gushed over it — "Hmmm. Not bad. Warm." — and when we put it on a mannequin at the shop, people couldn't leave it alone! Several skeins of suri left for their brave new world that day, complete with the alterations to the pattern: knit with 9s, not 6s, cast on 160, not 150 stitches and knit the whole skein, not just 3-1/2 inches (that's one short neck!).


As for this early-fall favorite-in-waiting?


Love them, love them! I reach for them nearly all the time. For holding on to a cold steering wheel, mostly, but they're great when I'm hanging out in the barn, getting a whole lot of nothing done. Consumer tip: When the pattern says to cast off loosely, that means ... cast off loooos-leeee — or have a lobster claw where your hand used to be. Ask me how I know.


Guess who's getting some whiskers. Hint: barkbark barkbarkbarkbark barkbarkbarkbark barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark barkbarkbark barkbarkbark barkbark