An Arbitrary Après-Après-Summer Sale

NEW IMPROVED SNOWLESS EDIT:

SALE FINISHES 31ST DECEMBER 2010

23:59 CET

There's nothing more depressing than seeing a children's playground, yesterday a source of deep, snowy, giggly fun, turned today, thanks to Mother Nature's need to put on some flannel underwear and warm things up a little, into a slushy, grey and soggy snowman's  graveyard.   

So to add a little cheer to an otherwise mucky, grey and generally dispiriting day, I've decided to have a wee sale of my patterns...  So from, oh, round about now, until sometime just after Christmas...  let's say the 28th for arbitrary's sake, [ed: now until the 31st of December]you can buy one pattern out of the Honey Socktails, Pom Stars, Strawberry Mojitos and Irish Ales and get a different pattern half price!

ONLY $5.25 $7.00 for TWO WHOLE PATTERNS!

All you need to do is click on this LINK and it'll take you through to my Ravelry designer's page with further links to each pattern.  Then you simply choose 2 different patterns to put in the basket and Ravelry, in its infinite hand-basket wisdom, will automatically award you with this marvellous deal!

There are, of course these other patterns which are already available for FREE, too.  (You lucky people!!!)  Gin and Tonics, Twist of Citrus and the Traffic Islands...

You'd better take advantage soon, before this Scots lass remembers that her race is allegedly not endowed with arms long enough for their pockets...  ;-)

A Verdant Triptych

An integral part of my knitting addiction two years ago was the repeated making-up of this lovely Cabled Glovelets pattern by Meg White in as many different yarns as my budget would allow.  A pretty simple fingerless mitt pattern, it gives enough lee-way to add your own special touches.  For this version, mine was adding the pearly beads to the inside of the cable crosses - nice and elegant against the marvellously chunky green Iceland Madil Yarns.

verdant cosy smooshiness

Having fallen rather hard for said deliciously soft yarn, I was thankful that there was still enough left to make something else with it...  But what?  There wasn't, sadly, enough for a nice, long scarf, or I'd have made it up in a heart-beat, but there was enough for a complementing hat.  And thus the Verdant Cap was born.  Well, really it was more cobbled together from a couple of disparate patterns that would, I assured myself, fit my circumferencely-well-endowed noggin.  So really, it was brought to life, Frankenstein-wise, from bits of other hats.  A Franken-Hat, if you will.  With pearls.  And scars.  It was, after all, my first ever attempt at a hat.

verdant cranium cosiness with added mwah ahahahaaaaaah

And so, like all good stories, there was a happy ending.  Until 2 years later, when a fair maiden (no guffawing at the back, thank you) stumbled across the remnants of greeny goodness after emptying her sock wool stash all over the floor.  Yes, I know: sock wool doesn't count as stash, so really it's an oxymoron. And no, I don't know why a ball of 10-ply thick goodness was in with the 4-ply sock skeiny loveliness, either.  Yet there it was, looking for all intents and purposes like it was there just waiting to be discovered and made into something WONDERFUL.  

But this was where the trouble started, you see.  There was only 100 metres or so left of the ball.  After starting with a total of THREE BALLS OF SMOOSHY GORGEOUSNESS (MWAH HAH HAH HAAAAAAAAAAH)  What?  I'm channelling my inner Count...  I had just under a ball left and not a lot of options.  

Uncle Ravelry came to the rescue, with, not so much a pattern, but an idea... Necklets!  Neck-Warmers!  Cowlettes!  Hoodettes!  Neck-Cosies!  

Taking the cable pattern from the Cabled Glovelets; casting-on around 100 sts and knitting in the round; adding a few more k2,p2 ribs here and there to match the hat; and adding a liberal dash of pearly whiteness.

Et voilà!  The Verdant Necklet was born.  

verdant necky warmthness

And boy, is it warm!