When a Dite Will Do Ya

As I was working on this gorgeous Louisa Harding handbag, I dipped into my stash 3 times for contrasting yarn. Since I'm using her hand-dyed Grace (silk & wool), I wanted to use equally fine yarns for the embellishing. The red flowers are from some left over Silk Alpaca, and the pale blue is left over hand-dyed Grace from my February Lady Sweater. As I was rifling through all my stuff (and I do have more than most of you reading this...even though your stashes are no doubt significant!), it occurred to me that it would be helpful to have a basket full of remnants in the shop for when just a dite will do ya.

While I wound these remnants into tidy balls, priced, and labeled them with as much information as I had, I came up with all sorts of ideas to use them: to knit contrasting toes or heels on socks, to fringe a scarf, to make tiny amurgami animals, or to embroider faces on kittens.

Here, I'm using a Tahki Stacy Charles red boucle to do Cozy Kitten's ears.
Although Cozy Kitten looks more like a hot water bottle cover than anything else, within the next few days, you will see kitty come to life with embellishment and stuffing!

Since embellishment is such a part of knitting and crocheting these days, tomorrow I will be in L.A. at the textile show searching for handbag handles, closures, more buttons and other decorative items. Looking forward to sharing the news with you upon my return!

...treasure thou some place...

I passed this lovely garden and sweet white picket fence this morning in Coronado. You know how Obama proudly said ... "How good looking is my wife?" before the inaugural ball? Well, I am compelled to say "How beautiful is my city?" For years I had a postcard of a cottage in Martha's Vineyard on my desk that looked much like this photo. I was homesick at the time and the friend who sent me the card wrote "...treasure thou some place..." Then, it seemed that I would never treasure the place where I lived as much as I treasured the place I came from. This morning as I stood outside this beautiful home with my two dear friends (who I met through knitting)...those words came back to me and I realized that I indeed treasure this place. Signing off with a grateful heart and more pictures of beautiful Coronado.

Cozy Kittens! (HaHa)

Don't fall off your chairs because you see a picture of knitted kittens on my blog. Allergic or not, these are too darn cute not to make. This pattern is called "Three Cozy Kittens" from a new book by Lorna Miser (formerly of Lorna's laces) called Faith, Hope, Love, Knitting. I am using Cinnabar, a Louisa Harding yarn, that has a wonderful tweedy look to it (not so easy to find in a cotton blend). It's the same yarn we used to make the "Daphne Purse" on the cover of Knitting Little Luxuries. I love the look of Cinnabar in a seed stitch (one of my favorite stitches) and looking forward to embroidering the face and tying the cutest ribbon I can find around kitty's neck (and I promised Melody "not too tight").