Yay finished Claudia... worth the wait I reckon :) Great pattern, easy to follow with great end results. In ravelry over 150 people have queued it, i'd say thats a good sign. I hope more people cast on!

I'm my only photographer so taking head shots or any in action shots are kinda tough for me... especially since I dont have a full length mirror. So YES the hat is on a collander (or strainer) which is in turn on a bowl (cos collanders have holes in them and the light was playing tricks with the camers) and that wierd nobly shape at the top is the collander not my hat!

I have dreams of making a matching scarf out of the rest of my KnitPicks yarn with the ribbing and trellis pattern at the bottom moving into the k1 p2 ribbing back into the trellis pattern and the ribbing. I think this can work cos the trellis pattern is the same upside down, just instead of K2tog i'd have to K1 M1..... fingers crossed!

My Insane need to find something to do with my hanks of Malabrigo gifted to me by my SP11 pal overwhelmed me after finishing Claudia.

It was really hard to find a pattern that was complex enough to keep my interest which still suited the solid colour. I had thought of doing My So Called Scarf, but that pattern really looks best with a varigated or multicoloured yarn.

Then I contemplated and even did a swatch of the sunday market shawl which was oh so soft in the malabrigo... but it just seemed too simple for something as great and magical as malabrigo.... ya know? (plus there are issues with cast on and cast off, i think there is a special trick to getting them to be streatchy enough with the dropping of stitches)

My saving grace seems to have been the Christmas Lace Scarf:

It's complex enough to keep me interested but simple enough to remember and look really great in the solid colour.

I seem to have lost a little bit of the softness that came with the Market Shawl swatch, but I reckon when I wash and block it the Malabrigo will relax and bloom, opening up the YO stitches a bit more.

Those blobs of undercoloured yarn are very irritating, given that they are so different to the rest of the very darkly coloured yarn. However they are appearing in a kind of ordered fashion so it almost looks as though its been done on purpose, I think can live with that ;-)

The Blogger spell check seems to be on the blink so please ignore any stupid spelling mistakes contained herein :)