Hurray for Coincidences!!

I am a HAPPY knitter!!!

You may remember that I've had to put my Highland Triangle Shawl on hold, due to problems with the second lace pattern. That's been in the UFO pile for a week now, with my fingers just itching to keep knitting on that project. Last night I got to a point that I needed to try the length of my Plait Cables scarf on DH, but he'd gone to bed. So, there I was, surrounded by yarn but what to knit??

Last summer I decided to make a gift scarf for a nurse at Mom's nursing home, and hadn't yet found a pattern for it. I recently bought some patterns from a knitter I met via the About.com Knitting Forum; her blog is BaxterKnits. I decided that her Easy Lace Scarf, shown in a coral yarn in the link, would be a good pattern for this gift, using some of Elann's Highland Silk yarn. So I cast on and knitted away till I started falling asleep.

Yesterday I was looking at the scarf and decided it was a bit too wide and the yarn was a bit too heavy for the recipient of this project; a change to a lighter-weight yarn is needed. But then the proverbial 'Light Bulb' went on: the pattern in Cindy's scarf and the Highland Triangle Shawl are exactly the same pattern! Cindy says this is just a variation of the timeless Razor Shell stitch pattern. The small difference is that the scarf pattern is knitted over stockinette, and the shawl is done as garter stitch.

In stockinette, and in a smooth yarn, it was really easy to see how the yarnovers and decreases are supposed to line up. In the Highland chunky yarn and a bit hidden by garter stitch, I couldn't figure out why my pattern wasn't coming out the way the chart read. This is a close-up scan of the scarf, pre-blocking of course, done in Elann's Baby Cashmere in Tapestry Blue.

In other ways, yesterday was a really good day, too. I got the new KnitPicks catalog, and have so far resisted ordering anything, but there are a couple of new free patterns I want to download, including a really nice pocket shawl. Y'all may wonder why I'm suddenly thinking of and doing warmer shawls. Well, just now it is 69F in the house and 77F outdoors. DH and I sleep with the bedroom windows open as much of the year as possible, with the furnace off overnight. So from now until April or so, it will be chilly in the mornings, perfect for a shawl. As you can see, Midnight has noticed the chill, and has moved closer to her 'sun'!

The best part of yesterday was a letter from KJ in Vancouver. We met online through the About.com Knitting Forum, and last year when I went to a knitting retreat in Salt Spring Island, just off Vancouver Island, I stayed a couple of days with her. Then we roomed together at Stitches West this February, and had massive amounts of fun! She sent some photos she'd found from my trip last summer, including from the pub where I was introduced to Growers' Hard Cider, one of the many good reasons to go back to BC. Growers' isn't distributed in the US, and is very different (and better, IMO) from most of the overly-sweet 'hard' ciders available here.

So, all sorts of goodness and happy-making things yesterday. Saturday DH and I are off to Arizona. He has a business seminar next week in Phoenix, and I'm going over for the weekend to visit my aunt (Mom's sister) in Mesa. Auntie is 82 and keeping on keeping on, in spite of a number of ailments, though she and her DH have moved to an assisted-living situation. I would stay longer, but Midnight and Shadow are on daily meds, and it's a hassle and pricey to get a meds-capable petsitter. Anyone know of LYSs I should visit?? LOL!