SWAK

Some pics of my new stuff from SWAK in Guthrie:


There's a couple of Berroco pattern booklets (I dragged the shop owner around the shop pointing at shop models, repeatedly saying, what pattern is that?. She patiently told me what was what and showed me each booklet and pattern) And a Lucy Neatby dvd, and an intarsia booklet (by the SWAK owners)
but what I may make first of these new goodies is the flip coat, also a SWAK pattern. It's garter knitting and rectangles but the way it works out is fascinating. They let me try it on and take a picture of the shop model:

They recommend mohair but I'm not so into mohair so I'm thinking suri alpaca. I have a skein on the way to swatch and test.

Um, there's a new skein of Jitterbug sock yarn that I hadn't seen at the local shops but I hear that it is available at Yarns Ewenique.

And there are new books in the collection from a recent Amazon order:

The Celtic Collection is one of the few Starmore books still available at retail so I went ahead and got it. Her work is beautiful and her patterns are well written but the sizes generally don't work for me. I'll have to make some adaptations but I'll do one sometime. The other book is a reprint of some articles from Threads from back when they still had knitting articles. I've just skimmed it but there are some interesting articles. And it was a heck of a deal. It is "used", purchased through Amazon from one of their book resellers but really seems in new condition.

On the knitting front, we have a bit of top on the STR socks:

It's an adaptation from Wendy's feather and fan sock pattern free on her blog.
She does more stitches on her sock foot and increases for the feather and fan. So I increased about the same percentage, from 54 to 60. (My sock foot until the arch is 48, then a few increases brought it up to 54.) Her feather and fan is 6 yos and 6 k2tog; mine is 5 of each. Seems to be working out so far. I need to do a few more feather repeats then knit in the heel to make sure the sock fits.

Oh, one more thing. I've signed up for sockmadness. They were closing sign-ups this morning but there are a few more openings so go sign up right away if you're interested. Go to http://sockmadness.wordpress.com/ I need to review my how-to-button and add a button to the margin. I hope I don't regret it as their rules do not allow my usual pattern alterations for my narrow feet.

Gotta go knit some feathers and watch some knitty dvd,
j