Of Gifts and Gorgeousness

For more information on this stunning and serendipitous SAL, please click on the graphic!

Well, I kind of disappeared there again, didn't I? I think what happens is that a "deadline" comes up...for instance, I was taken completely by surprise that the Alphabet Club's "first Saturday of the month" was the SECOND of this month...I am unprepared, and so I delay while I try to think of what to post, and many other posts go into some mystical queue behind the post I "need" to write, where they languish! So I am going to try to not beat myself up if I miss a SAL post and just soldier on!

So anyway...the lovely and talented Jo at Serendipitous Stitching has invited us to share our projects we are working on that have been gifted to us, that we are gifting to others, or that we can in any way possible shoehorn into the category of gifting!!

What's great about having a birthday at the end of a month (mine was at the end of February) is that you can usually claim the next month as a birthday month as well (and if you're really doing well, the month after that as well). In March, my DF Jean gave me a lovely birthday package:

Look at the little squirrel paper clips!! My journal is now covered with them. I immediately went to Ravelry to find the perfect thing to knit with that extraordinarily gorgeous yarn, and I think Pamuya will fit the bill! You might think I would have picked a plainer pattern, but I get bored if something is too plain (too much stockinette or garter stitch). And how about that blinged-out squirrel magnet!! He is already in action on my Curios, a mystery class with Kathy Rees (we don't know what the project will look like once it's finished):

This is just the first part of the first lesson. I am woefully behind! This is the project that is using all those gorgeous threads I showed you in my last GG post.

And now my gift of knowledge to you for this month...you might remember the two-colored hat that was in progress last month. (I have finished it, but it hasn't had its glamour shot yet!) I want to make a pair of mittens in the same colors. Now, the hat was a mosaic pattern, where you only need to hold/knit with one color of yarn at a time. The mittens I want to make, though, are done in a Fair Isle pattern, where you must hold two colors at once. I watched the most brilliant and clear video of how to do this! There's your gift of knowledge. ;) I picked a(nother) hat pattern for my final Loopy Academy project this semester that has a small band of Fair Isle on it so I could practice but not be in over my head. So, this is happening...

I will not describe the fits and starts I went through with this, from trying to wrestle my clumsy hands into holding yarn in a way I could live with, to discovering I had made a mistake close to the beginning of the first round and needing to rip back, not once...not twice...but THREE TIMES!! And then when I finally had knit it correctly, realizing that I had skipped the increase row before that completely. *cries a little* I am on my way now, though. My tension is terrible, and it looks pretty bad (I picked the best part to photograph, of course ;), but it's getting done. The very observant of you may have noticed, though, that this is NOT actually Fair Isle...some of those bands have THREE colors in them. So, I quickly moved from learning to hold two yarns to three...good thing I had bought a yarn guide ages ago, or I never could have managed it.

My final "gift" of the month is a preview of what is coming to the Atlanta Botanical Garden next week!

A very "gifted" artist, Dale Chihuly, who makes large glass art pieces, will be setting up art around the Garden! (Or, to be more accurate, his team will be setting them up.) I can't wait to see the whole show; as members of the Garden, we get to get a first glimpse of the sculptures all lit up at night as well!

That's it for me for the month! If you'd like to see more Gifted Gorgeousness, go back to the top of the post and click the graphic!