I Heart Madelinetosh

I knew that during the course of my Husbands deployment I would be knitting like a fiend, but even I couldn’t foresee churning out TWO projects in the first two weeks of his deployment!  I am a slow knitter by most accounts, so it was fairly shocking when I found myself binding off a honey cowl less than a week into the deployment.   An even bigger shock came exactly one week after that when I began to bind off a mara shawl.  Granted, it was a 2 skein version- but being that it was my first triangle shawl, and only my second shawl ever, even I was amazed at my apparent mad knitting skills.

Honey Cowl by Madelinetosh- knit using Madelinetosh dk in the colorway Seaglass

Mara by Madelinetosh (2 skein version) knit using Madelinetosh dk in Tart.

I’m finding myself in the middle of an intense love affair with Madelinetosh yarns.  The softness of each skein, the way it seems to glide between my fingers as I knit with it, the amazingly squishy resulting fabric that comes with knitting it up at the proper gauge… I want to surround myself with these yarns!  The colors are so saturated and intense, which only makes the experience of knitting with it that much more satisfying.  Sigh…  I ❤ Madelinetosh…

Amazing Fantastic-ness (Otherwise referred to as the mad swapping skills of Irishdans)

When I started  Swap on a Budget on Ravelry in April of 2008, there was no way that I could imagine what it has grown to be today, 2 years later.  We are in the midst of our 8th swap round, have many of the same original members and are gaining new faces everyday.  We are 560 members strong and so many of us have forged amazing friendships with each other, been inspired by one anothers projects, and some have even met face to face.  With each swap, I am more and more amazed by the creativity of our packages, and the genuine attention paid to what goes into the swap box’s.  So when I received my package today, I was floored to see that my spoilee was none other than the amazing Irishdans.  Cris is one of the swappers who has been with SoaB from the VERY beginning, so I already felt that I knew her, but having recieved such an amazing package from her really opened up my eyes even more to the kind and thoughtful person that she is.  Check out the swag!

K2, yo, kiss the Hubs goodbye, K2tog

I’ve come to realize that knitting for me has been more about peace and maintaining calm in the craziness that is my world, as opposed to necessity.  That has never been more apparent to me than in the past few weeks leading up to Hubs’ deployment.  A few weeks ago, I started the Whisper Cardigan (Ravelry link) knowing full well that even on average sized needles, this lace cardi was going to take foooorrrreeeevvvvvvveeeeeerrrrr…

and it IS taking forever.  So much so that I got tired of it and started a Honey Cowl the day after he left.  Did I need a new project?  No.  Did I need a fresh distraction to keep me from thinking about how badly I miss him?  Absolutely.  And who wouldn’t want to be enveloped in buttery soft Madelinetosh dk?  I absolutely adore this yarn- lets face it, I adore pretty much all of Madelinetosh’s yarns.

The colorway is Seaglass and is, in my opinion, the perfect green.  If I could, I would surround myself in this color.

But between all the knitting, there was the kissing goodbye… and it hurts… We had a lovely goodbye party for him at my Dads last weekend- Dad even brought out the BIG BBQ which is a huge thing, since he mostly only uses it for when he BBQs for the church or caters weddings.

And now that the Honey cowl is complete, I’ve started another Tosh project- a Mara (Ravelry Link).  The way I see it, the more tosh I use, the more tosh I can buy!  I see no problem with my math ;o)