portland gussets

i finished these lovely socks a few weeks ago and haven't had a chance to take photos until recently. yarnissima is wonderfully talented sock designer, and the yarn is hazel knits, so pretty much an unstoppable combination.

new favorite pattern of all time

perhaps the fastest and loveliest scarf i've ever made (and let me tell you, i have made a LOT of scarves over the years. This is stephen west's "clockwork" scarf in socks that rock lightweight, knit on size 6 needles.

i'm about to cast on another one of these to knit while i'm on vacation. clockwork 2 will be in green and blue wollmeise. (!)

mission accomplished

the first time i ever knit fair isle was a hat i designed myself in a knitting class.  it feels like it was a really long time ago...and, well, i suppose it was - probably 10 years now.  i was house-sitting the same week i started the class, and i went back to my temporary home and worked for hours and hours on that hat, falling in love with fair isle.

the other thing i fell in love with during that class was alice starmore's book, charts for colour knitting:

this is the ultimate fair isle chart book.  137 pages, nearly every one of them graph paper covered in little black dots.  these are charts from alice starmore's own pattern library, some collected from others, some adapted from artwork, some of her own creation.  she also describes fitting fair isle patterns onto the body of a sweater.  

my teacher brought this book to class on the first day, as a resource in designing our personal hat patters (with colored pencils!)  silly me--having no idea that this book is both out of print and rare, and sells for upwards of $275 on amazon and ebay--asked if i could borrow it until the next class.  the answer: no!  she never let that book out of her site, and now, knowing much more about alice starmore and this book in particular, i do not question that response at all.  in fact, i'm surprised she brought it to class in the first place and let us paw all over it.  

over the years i've always kept my eyes open at fiber festivals, used book stores, etc. etc., hoping i would come across this book, and hoping it would miraculously be in my price range.  no luck.  well, until this week, when on a whim i happened to check amazon and found it!  no, it was not cheap.  nor was it quite as expensive as all the other times i've searched for it.  in fact, it was the cheapest i've ever seen it.  and so.  a little hemming and hawing, a little consumer-guilt, and VOILA:

i am the very proud owner of an almost-new-ish copy of the book i have been lusting after for 10 years!  and now i've got to go and dig through my stash for a celebratory fair isle project!

p.s. there is actually another pretty-reasonably-priced used copy available on email...just sayin' if you're interested... :)