What I'm Knitting

I've actually been knitting quite a few things!  I'm plugging away at a mid-gauge book.  I wanted to include a warm scarf.  Even though the book is written with beginners in mind, I didn't want the usual beginner's scarf - an ordinary rectangle.  I wanted it to be interesting to knit and interesting-looking, as well.  I wanted for fellow knitters to say to the knitter, "How'd you DO that?"  I also wanted it to be easy, not to require a tremendous amount of hand-tooling.

I decided to go diagonal and use a self-patterning yarn.  I like this alpaca blend from Hobby Lobby, "Fair Isle." One day I saw the yarn in the store, and the next morning I had the idea and went back to the store to buy some.  The geometry was great fun - the whole thing is slanted, and initially, I wasn't sure how to get nice scarf ends.  The way it's folded and sewed together solves that problem. 

I am also getting ready to teach at two seminars.  I'll be in Milwaukee weekend after next, and then in Chicago in October. 

Later in October, I'm attending Mary Anne Oger's seminar in Dallas with my girlfriends.  I'm excited about that, as well, since I haven't yet attended one of her seminars and I loved her magazine, "Knit Words."  I hear she does a terrific seminar.