Finished object: Windermere

It's been a fairly busy summer. As I've learned, we have winter for a solid 6 months of the year, so summer is a time for doing as much as possible outside the house. J and I went to see Daniel Tosh in Great Falls, and we also saw Kenny Rogers--THE GAMBLER himself--last weekend. We've also been making good use of the fire pit I got J for his birthday, and have had several nights of sitting in the backyard with marshmallows, beer, and fire.

In the middle of my summer activities, I finished my Windermere scarf.


The pattern is from Sweet Paprika, and is a design I've loved since I first saw it in the Ravelry Obscuriosity group's past knitalongs. I got this fabulous hand-dyed yarn from The Yarn Stash in Minot, and it turned out to be a great match for the pattern.



I made the stockinette sections smaller because I wanted the finished scarf to be a bit narrower than the design called for, especially since I was using a fingering weight yarn rather than laceweight. Beyond that, I did the pattern pretty much as written--even the grafting! I had to undo some of my grafting when I got about halfway through the center lace pattern and noticed that my stitches weren't lining up AT ALL, but it was smooth sailing once that error was fixed (I'd completely skipped grafting some of the YOs).

When it starts to cool off in another month or so, I have another scarf for my arsenal!

Yarn Radar

J and I were in Billings for a weekend trip a few weeks ago. While we were driving around, I found Purl Yarn Boutique, a brand new yarn store! J joked that I must have some kind of yarn radar... I have a tendency to find yarn any time we go out of town.

Anyway, we went in, and it's a great store. Very open and uncluttered, friendly staff, and two adorable shop dogs. I'll definitely go back next time we're in Billings.

J was drawn to the Manos display, and picked out this skein of Maxima in the Arctic colorway:


And I picked up a few skeins of this gorgeous red Spud & Chloe Fine, maybe for a second go at a Whisper Cardigan:


I can't get over how smooshy this stuff is!