Actual Knitting Pic (are we amazed, or what?)

Here it is, Clapotis, from http://knitty.com. BTW, do read the Fall Surprise. It is a printable mini-magazine, and it's about cancer, and associated stuff to knit. And not only that, Theresa, of Bagatell, tells her survival story. Theresa is really neat. Were it not for her, I might not have discovered blogging. I saw one of Theresa's patterns (Vinterlue), in Knitty, and read her bio, and started writing to her. She lives in Norway, and helped me with learning Norwegian, and also with setting up my blog. When I saw hers, I knew that a blog was the type of website I wanted, because of the interactiveness. So anyway, do take a look. Thanks Knitty, and Theresa!

Back to my scarf. The yarn is Red Heart Symphony. It's acrylic. Not my favorite, but as nice as Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb (silk/wool) would be, it was beyond my budget this month, and I needed to start knitting something and didn't have anything spun that I wanted to use, and this felt warm. Yeah, I have this compulsion to justify any purchase of acrylic yarn that I make.

I'm using a circular needle. I rarely do single-pointeds, since circulars can handle anything. I am not turning my work - just knitting backwards on the odd rows. This pattern calls for lots of stitch markers - 18 of them. I have that many somewhere, but I could only find 10. That's ok - I don't believe in buying stitch markers anyway. If you must have stitch markers, you can just tie a loop of yarn in a contrasting color and use that (I'm using hemp for the markers after I ran out). Usually, I don't bother with stitch markers, since I think they are a pain and they get in the way, and I can see where my place is without them, but for this pattern, you do kind-of need them. They mark the untwisted stitch to be dropped later in the middle of two twisted stitches, and it's really hard to see. I could keep track of it by count, but the markers allow me to knit brainlessly, and that's rather nice at this point in my life right now. Oh, and there is an error in the pattern, but you can figure it out just fine as long as you remember that it's the stitch after the marker that you are going to drop.

Critters

They really are here!

And here's another view, from the pasture this time.