Feeling semi-human today

Before I begin, let me just say that this cold has totally and officially kicked my ass! After four days without leaving the house, I finally crept out into the open yesterday out of necessity, and also to do little yarn shopping therapy. Not that I needed any yarn, mind you, but hey, since I had to go out and all....(To all of you who may have had to listen to my ear-crunching cough while out in public yesterday, I apologize. But even though I sounded tubercular, I'm not contagious....honest).

I was good....I bought only sock yarn, which as you know, does not increase my total stash count. I'm so well-behaved! I have been wanting to try some Tofutsies yarn for a while, but couldn't find the color I have been wanting anywhere. It just so happened that Let It Rain Yarn in Mukilteo got a new shipment, so I mosied on over there and picked up the great dark raspberry color I've been looking for. While I was there, I also spied some Cascade Fixation variegated in bright pinks. It was a pink thing for me yesterday! I guess looking at such happy pink colors made me feel better, and like there is some hope that spring may eventually get here.

No pics of the sock yarn, but here is a peek at these little lovelies I picked up last week while out on a fun day with a friend. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist the lure of the silk...in purple no less! I have been fondling this yarn in several yarn stores recently, but was able to resist temptation and return it to the shelf until I found this color.

I have been wanting to try entrelac for a while, and a couple of weeks ago the perfect opportunity arose with an entrelac tutorial in the new Interweave Knits. After some trial and error, and some small bits of ripping, I was able to finally get the hang of it. I must say that the directions in that tutorial by Euny Jang were not the most clear I've ever seen. I had to do a couple of extra rows before I could figure out where in the instructions to jump to do an end row, and on which row I could end it! Anyway, here's the swatch I ended up with---not perfect, but I think it resembles the intended technique...

Not related to the entrelac, but rather to Interweave Knits....here's a little complaint for today---Does anyone else think that the new format is a little....,um,...sucky? I've always loved Interweave for the fact that I could page through and there was great content to the very last page, stuff to look at til the end, and that all of the directions for the patterns were on the same pages with the pictures. Well, no more. Now, like every other knitting magazine out there, you get about 10 pages of great pictures, with the entire back half of the magazine filled with pages and pages of pattern instructions. Boring. Maybe I'm weird, but I liked it the way it was. IMO, having the pictures and patterns together was a superior and more interesting format. I guess hoping that they'll reconsider and return to the old format is too much to hope for. It's so sad when good magazines go bad...(a slight exaggeration, but I do think the new format is definitely not an improvement.)

And finally, in the spirit of always being a little late with everything, I give you a St. Patrick's Day dishcloth that I made a few weeks ago. For the record, it was actually finished in time, but couldn't post pics due to aforementioned demise of my old laptop. So, Happy St. Patrick's Day! (hey, use your imagination here)....

This cute pattern is free on Rachel's blog. If you like to knit dishcloths, she has some really cute patterns she designed on her blog, both for sale and free as well. Thanks for the cute pattern, Rachel!

Hope you have a great week, and if you go out, watch out for a really nasty cold germ that is lurking out there and wants desperately to stick itself to you just in time for spring!


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