"Everyone's wearing their scarves like this in France!"

...so says my friend...Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but I thought it would be nice to show those of you who aren't familiar with this method, how to tie this 'scarf knot'. (Just for kicks, I thought it worth mentioning that one of my co-workers said she watches international poker and that this one champion from France who is always on the broadcasting, always wears a scarf and has it tied just like this. See? Perhaps it IS true?!)

I'm going to attempt to walk you through this; I wish I were better at drawing arrows onto pics and all that, but I'm not.

This looks best with a plain, solid scarf, but you have to admit that Nartian's Chevron looks pretty good like this! This also works best with a long scarf.

1) Take your long scarf and put it around your neck, leaving a short end ("end A").


2) Taking the long end ("end B"), wrap the scarf once (completely) around your neck. See how the first short end ("end A") is the bottom-most layer, then the loop that comes around the front then forms a second scarf layer on top? Then the free end ("end B") is hanging (in this example, it is shown on the right as we look a the picture.


3) Take this end ("end B") and bring it (crossing) under the first short end ("end A") and up through the loop (second scarf layer).

4)Voila! A nice braided knot that will stay in place! The French are doing it, why not you?!


Phew! Hope you were able to follow this! You wouldn't know this, but that took alot of time! Long story, but all of a sudden I couldn't get my pics rotated properly without having to go in and edit and save them individually! UGH! I wish I had more time to get more computer-saavy!

So since this has taken so long, I might as well show off the latest stash enhancement for YPF!

Look what arrived in the mail?!

I had already ratted myself out on having caved and ordered from Woolmeise, and here is the lovely package I received! If you look closely, you will see the mini skein sample I got-it's Rosen Rot, so the color blends in with the bag, but it is tucked right under the flap.

And here, the yarns I couldn't resist...

• Versuchskaninchen 2 (medium intensity), Dani (dark intensity) and Salamander (medium intensity)! The Dani has a nice swath of that royal blue Nartian loves so well. She and I figured out that the Versuchskaninchen is a "Guinea Pig", which she explained (doh!) is one of Claudia's "experiments". This thrilled me and made me even happier that I'd chosen it! Yes, folks, the thrill is in the capture of rare bounty-not only known as Woolmeise, but in an experimental colorway, nonetheless! SCORE! BTW, I hadn't even checked the content of any of them! The Salamander and Versuchskaninchen 2 are 100% Merino Superwash and the Dani colorway is the 80/20. As always, I'm lame and haven't even knit with either of the other two skeins I purchased earlier, but I have had the priviledge of touching Nartian's Firestarters and KNOW this stuff is going to knit up incredibly awesome! Soft, strong, springy fabric! But I also know that the Salish Sea socks will be first, and I can't start those until...well...among many things, I still have a few outstanding small projects and-golly-gee-wow! Secret of the Stole II starts tomorrow!-Wowweee Wow Wow! (Yes, it was a Junie B. story reading night tonight...!) So as always, this Tapmouse is tapped! The usual lament: so many projects...so little time!

Still not over, but a few things complete...

Phew! I got this second pair of Fetchings done for my friend by Christmas Eve! I actually finished them over the prior weekend, but still had 2 purses to make for her two girls!


Instead, I cheated. I used the one purse that was 99% completed for my other friend's daughter, since I wouldn't be seeing her right away. Just had to pick up stitches along the bottom, then cast them off. Since I ran out of the purple color, I used black, but then decided I needed to do the same at the top to balance the colors. On Sunday (yes, the day before it was to be gifted!), it went into the washer, then out to dry. I stuck it by the heat vent and crossed my fingers...

while I feverishly crocheted this...
OK, so it was another change of plans-instead of a felted bag, I did a crocheted cupcake purse. I had been naughtily procrastinating, checking out Ravelry, when I came across some crocheted cupcake purse pics. I decided that this was cute, I had the yarn in my stash, and by-golly, this couldn't take longer than a felted purse! And besides, then I wouldn't have to wash it and hope it dried in time! So in a way, I made up for the fact that I had used up valuable knitting time playing on Ravelry!

Actually, the pattern choices I found on Ravelry were both $4 patterns and I struggled over which to get. One pattern was also offered as a set of purses-all 5 patterns for $10! But I needed the pattern NOW and I wasn't sure how quickly the PDF would get sent to me! Should I wing it? It seemed simple enough...should I take the chance I'd get the pattern by the next day (folks, I think this was Saturday or at the earliest Friday night-late night-like 2-3am morning kinda late...) Besides this, where was my reason? I was supposedly doing this with very short time left and I was supposed to be justifying my enormous stash and somehow trying to make amends for all my yarny spending by saving money knitting my stash as gifts!

OK, I'm kinda proud of myself...after the "brilliant" idea of googling for a freebie pattern of this sort (hey-it was late, I was tired and it took that long to figure it out-DUH!), I found this pattern by Cynthia Gurisko! Thanks heavens for Google, Crochetville, free patterns and clever people willing to share!

I went down 2 hook sizes, knit the bottom in Cotton Fleece (Lamb's Pride) and the top with leftover Ella Rae (remember the felted slippers?...)...I severely increased the top, ( 4 evenly spaced increase per row for the first several cupcake top rows vs. the single increase per row instructed in the pattern...). And I was pretty darn pleased with it at 4am on Christmas Eve as I watched the Smurfs and then some other wannabe Smurfly type cartoon that followed...

So I still have a felted purse to make, and another pair of fetchings (for my bros GF), some Dashings for a friend who whines about how I never knit him anything, Dashings for my good friend's son who got me a Wii for Little Emperor with a two days notice (it wasn't planned, but worked out well...spoiled LE!), Fetchings for my quilt teacher who liked the first pair I was working on, so how could I not offer to make her some?, and a pair of Dashing for my bro (another thank-you for his awesome favor of drawing up some designs for LE's school to use for t-shirts and what-not...)

And when am I planning on starting Twist or swatching for my Secret of the Stole II? Yeah, I'm insane and don't know if these will ever happen! Keeping my fingers crossed and my needles moving!

And amidst the planning, wrapping, knitting for Christmas, I received my naughty, me-being-out-of-control Yarn Wench purchase of (not the original 2 I ordered, but) THREE bags of roving! If you care what colorways they are, I'll post them later. Right now I'm too lazy to go look again. I think one was amethyst something-or-other, gothic whatever, and orchid somesuch name...Beauties, aren't they? Oh-how about this...I did get around to sneaking a bit of spinning in to see how they'd look, so I'll show them with their names later...
And I also got me and Nartian's "Digetessa" kits! I'm only showing one because, well...you know, they look identical except one was wrapped in brown tissue paper and the other in green...the Digetessa and accompanying special-dyed Woolmeise yarn! And these yummy gingerbready tasting droplets attached!

And for now, I'll leave you with this...the guest of the Christmas Season! No, don't be fooled-it's not the Bob of Ravelry fame, but my canine niece, Nico! Here she is, wondering where her masters are and why she was dumped off at the Mouse Hutch!

Merry, Merry everyone! And have a wonderful 2008! Maybe I'll post again before 2007 comes to a close, and I hope everyone had a good Chanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, or whatever you celebrate during this time of year!