We all know the most famous split personality: Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde…that is what I call my latest FO.  Do you want to go to the dark side or into the light??  YOU decide!

This is my Gradient Cowl — it is like getting two cowls in one!  I used 4 skeins of Shibui Silk Cloud, colors Clay, Honey, Grounds and Mineral:

From Left to Right above: Honey-Clay-Honey-Grounds-Mineral

It is as soft as the underbelly of a baby bunny and really nice on the shoulders when the air conditioning is set too cold!  I also want to make a blue –> green version.  It is really nice…except for grafting seed stitch with 3 strands of mohair.  Did not turn out well.

Update on World War Z — fantastic!  L O V E D it.  So scary, so realistic, great zombies, lots of action, great story line.  It did not seem very much like the book, but that’s okay I guess.  My adolescent male self rated it an A+!!!

I don’t want to step on Susan’s post (contrasting her two shawls, below) or hide it by doing anything too fancy here.  But it’s after midnight on the east coast, so even though she’s in Minnesota:

Happy Birthday, Susan!!!

Yes, it’s me!  I am back after travelling into the abyss that is know as the “High School Graduation Open House.”  Is this common in all of the U.S. or is this a Minnesota/Midwest phenomenon??  Egads.  But my open house is done and doner so I am feeling pretty footloose at the moment!

Okay, A Tale of Two Shawls.  As you may remember, I recently finished an Aranami Shawl in Brooklyn Tweed’s LOFT yarn.  My daughter loved it but preferred something lighter, so I decided to make her one — but in Cascade 220 Fingering (a misnomer if ever there was one: Cascade 220 is so named because it is the yardage of their worsted weight yarn 220 yds/100 grams; so what does that have to do with fingering weight yarn??!!??).

Anyway, I finally finished my second Aranami.  So boring.  And the second one to boot.  Quadruple boring (boring increases at a geometric rate).  I took both shawls to my knitting group and did a “blind taste test” – actually, I asked them to vote for their favorite: “If you had to choose one of these two shawls to keep as your very own, which one would it be?”

100% chose the $25 Cascade 220 Fingering version over the $72.50 LOFT version for both the look and the feel.

Here they are side by side (LOFT on the left, Cascade Fingering on the right):

The LOFT version has a browner tint.  The Cascade colors have sharper contrast: the bottom tiers are whiter, the top tier much darker.  There are also gauge differences, and I had to add a tier to the LOFT version for size.  Though I did not add a tier to the Cascade version, I did add a small amount of knitting to the top two tiers…described in detail on my Ravelry project page.

The Cascade yarn, thin as it is, has amazing strength.  I loved working with it and would highly recommend this yarn.

My current project is a copy of Sally’s Gradient Cowl – mine is in golds and browns.  Yowza, it is pretty yarn!!

PS – She loved it!! (and preferred the Cascade, given the choice – much drapier and lighter weight).

When Susan and I were at Yarnover, we both fell in love with a make-it-yourself necklace kit with wire, beads, and wire ribbon. The project is Falling Leaves, designed by Bev Pilarzyk. For me, wire knitting never turns out quite like it does for the “pros.” I’m not unhappy with my necklace, but it’s not as beautiful as the one I saw at Yarnover. Just sayin’.

On the other hand, I was able to make this in a quick afternoon, and it was fun to do something so different from what I usually knit. I’m not sure where I will wear it, though, which is my own issue and not the designer’s. It seems a little dressy for most of my activities. (Then again, getting dressed at all seems a little dressy for most of my activities.)

Here, though, is my little necklace. I knit four leaves as called for in the pattern, but I am showing it here with just two. (You can play around with how you want to wear it.) I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the photos.