Gifts and Relaxation

This past week, the knitting group had it's biannual white elephant gift exchange.  The gifts are knitting based (what else would you expect from a knitting group).  It can be yarn, notions, project bags, books, you name it. Stitch markers and pretty project bags are particularly coveted and fought over in the fray.  During the gift exchange, stealing gifts from others is not only condoned, it's encouraged.  But everyone goes home with a gift and usually everyone goes home happy.

I managed to get (I stole it from Lana after the gift I opened was stolen from me) a great gift of beautiful blue Mad Tosh sport weight in Lapis. (which is the reason I stole it because GiGi loves that color), a project bag with sheep on it (so cute! It's from Blue Tulips' Etsy Shop), and some adorable Lantern Moon crocheted sheep stitch markers.

On top of a great gift exchange, Hubbie and I got to spend the weekend at his sister Kerri's house in Pennsylvania.  "The Hotel" (Did I mention that her place is huge?) is a great place to relax and knit (and read papers and write dissertation chapters).  We spent a lot of time in front of the fire reading and knitting. (Well, I knit, Hubbie's not so fond of it.  I've decided to let this one slide.)

I've been working on Stephen West's Pogona for the past few days.  I wanted to knit with some lovely Tosh Merino Light (Rhubarb colorway) I got in November.  Pogona is a simple design that works well with highly variagated yarn.

When I get tired the stockinette shawlette, I switch to the monster lace project that I've been alternately knitting on and avoiding for the past few months (in Jaggerspun Zephyr in Garnet).  This relationship is likely to continue for quite some time because this is just the test knit.  The full size shawl will be circular.  I'll keep you posted.

Winnie got to spend some time with his Weimaraner cousin Bella. They played, ate, went on lots of walks, and then finally crashed.  They sure do love the fireplace!

Such a tough life they lead,
Joyce

Gentle Rain

The Gentle Rain shawl will forever be Snowman’s Blush to me.  Ok, maybe I should start at the beginning. 

Once upon a time there was a shawl with no name that was going to be knit in pink yarn... 

One day TK and I were sitting on the train on our way home from somewhere, and I requested that she help me name my latest shawl design (‘cause she’s good like that).  

For those of you who’ve never been to New York, subway train cars have a lot of advertisements, not just on the walls, but along the ceiling and sometimes even on the outside of the cars.  They advertise everything from tv shows to beer to universities to bunion doctors.  The subway car that we were sitting in that day just happened to be advertising peanuts.  I know, crazy huh?  

Anyway, as we sat there and discussed the shawl, TK suddenly said to me, “You should name it snowman’s blush!” I responded with, “Huh?”   (FYI, my witty repartee makes me a hit at all the parties.)  She then pointed to one the peanut ads on the wall.  It was of a couple of guys running naked through the snow and the tag line read, “Gives you the energy to make a snowman blush.” And my brain said, “Eureka!” We’d been tossing around names like first blush, blush of spring, and such, but why not Snowman’s Blush? It’s weird and funny and I loved it.  But… cue ominous music…

It became Gentle Rain instead.  When I realized that I was going to submit it to KnitPicks, I decided I wanted to knit it in Alpaca Cloud.  But… seriously, where is that music coming from?... they didn’t have any pink Alpaca Cloud.  Plus Stacey, the IDP designer liaison at KnitPicks looked at me funny via email (hey! It’s possible.) when I told her the name.  So we decided on light blue (Waltz colorway) and a name change.  And that’s how a snowman’s blush became a gentle rain.  But we’ll always know it’s true identity.

I hope it doesn’t lose its CIA job over this,

Joyce

P.S. The second version in in Zephyr laceweight.