Catching Up

How gratifying to check back here after my first new post in a long while, and see comments!  I love hearing from you.  I plan on answering The Student Knitter's knitting question in a minute, but first I have to tell you about the mushroom hunting that has been cutting into my knitting time.  

                     How many morel mushrooms can you see?

Over the last month, 3 of my 4 regular knitting nights were usurped when my husband's mushroom hunting buddies came to town.  (Not that I mind.  Besides being fellow foodies, they are charming and funny.  One of them is a wonderful chef, and one of them even knits!)  Still, it is only fair that this past weekend, the roles were reversed, and my husband and I took some of my knitting friends into the forest on a morel mushroom foray.  

The morels grow in the spring the year after a pine forest fire, so while hunting you get a first-hand view of the past devastation, as well as the new growth.


One knitting friend, who joined in, has started her own nature blog. If you are interested you can read more about our day here.

Alas, the morels are not one of the mushrooms that can be used for dyeing yarn, but they are delicious.  The loss of knitting time to mushroom hunting is fine with me when my husband makes a breakfast like this one:  his homemade biscuits, topped w/eggs fresh from our own chickens, spinach from the garden, and morels fresh from the forest.  I can't speak to the bacon being fresh from the forest, but soon there will be our own farm-fresh bacon. (But that's another blog entry.)




Back to knitting:
So, first off I'll answer the question about the scarf pictured in my last post.  It's just as well to start there, as the Chevron Scarf was my first FO in chronological order since I was posting here regularly.

Pattern:  Chevron Scarf
Source:  Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson
Materials:   Precious Silk & Merino from Coloratura, in the "Cosi Fan Tutte" colorway, 1 Pastel skein, 1 Rich skein, and US 5 needles

The Student Knitter wanted to know if I used 2 different yarns to make the stripes.  The answer is... yes, and no. 
The fantastic thing about this handpainted yarn from Coloratura, is that every colorway is produced in both a "Pastel" and a "Rich" version.

A couple of years ago at Stitches West, I bought both a light and a dark skein of the Cosi Fan Tutte colorway, because I couldn't decide which one I preferred for a sweater I had in mind. The sweater never came about, but the yarn seemed like a perfect choice when I decided to knit the Chevron Scarf.  As you can see from the 2,270+ versions of the scarf on Ravelry, most knitters use a variegated sock yarn to create the stripe effect.  But I've been wanting to knit something like Brooklyn Tweed's Noro Striped Scarf.  So this was a perfect opportunity to combine the 2 patterns while destashing. 
 When I first started knitting, the greens and golds in the yarn were jumping out at me, and I started to worry that my scarf would end up coordinating with 1970's kitchen decor.  But, now that it's done, the roses and pinks stand out, and I do love it. 
Well, I think dinner is burning, more catching up soon...