scarf | First Light Handcrafts

Occasionally, I will be surfing Ravelry or Twitter and I will come across a photo of a new (or not-so-new) pattern and the strangest thing happens. I become utterly and completely obsessed with the item in question and I have to knit it right. this. second.

So starts the story of how I ended up knitting a Winter Birch in a weekend.

Someone on my Twitter feed posted that they were having a KAL of the scarf and while I didn’t have the yarn required to participate, I did have a stunning silver-grey skein of Illimani Silky Baby Llama that I had picked up on a recent trip to a yarn shop in Kitchener. It was the right weight and the right size skein, and I was completely in love with the pattern so I cast on on a Friday evening.

It was ridiculously simple to memorize; I think I had it totally committed to memory by the end of the first repeat.

~Photo by Shireen Nadir

I found the repeats to be like potato chips…”just one more”. Within a couple of days, voila! A gorgeous and soft creation, just the right length for tucking into the front of a coat.

It was already pretty enough, but then my friend Shireen came over, armed with her camera, and took some lovely pics for me. Someday I am going to finish my Craftsy “Shoot It!” class, I swear!

~Photo by Shireen Nadir

I am extremely happy with how it turned out, and considering how quickly I was able to churn it out, the pattern is definitely going to stay at the top of my list for gifting possibilities.

Pattern: Winter Birch by Debbie Stone

Yarn: Illimani Silky Baby Llama in the ever-so-descriptive colourway “1804”

Who Was It Made For? Me? Not entirely sure if it will get gifted elsewhere.

Were There Changes Made To The Pattern? Only in the sense that I knit and knit until I was out of yarn and thus ended up with extra repeats.

Did I Learn Anything New? No

Anything Else? Not that I recall.

Would I Make Another?: I already have it queued for a skein of Handmaiden Great Big Sea.

A couple of months ago, my amazingly talented friend Shireen, over at The Blue Brick gave me a stunning gift: a multi-stranded bracelet she had crafted from Swarovski crystals, inspired by her trip to St. John’s, Newfoundland, or more specifically Quidi Vidi Lake.

Photo credit: Shireen X. Nadir of The Blue Brick

I fell in love with the piece the moment I saw her blog post about it, but as an ex-pat Newfoundlander, I was beyond touched when she gifted me with such beautiful, tangible reminder of home.

I have been wearing the bracelet with jeans and a brown blazer since I got it…but I felt there was something else needed to tie the outfit together. I remembered a skein of yarn I saw on last year’s TTC Knitalong; it was a skein of Malabrigo Sock in a colourway called “Playa”, that was primarily navy blue and chocolate brown. So I headed downtown this week to see if I could find it.

While hanging out at the Purple Purl on Tuesday, I ran across a braid of SweetGeorgia spinning fibre in a colourway called “Stillwater” that looked like it would fit the bill and asked the ladies there whether they had a skein of fingering weight yarn in the same colourway. Amazingly enough, they had a single skein of Cashluxe Fine (20% cashmere….YUM!) in the exact same colourway, perfect for a pretty scarf.

A perfect match, no?

So, I have the skein and have chosen what I think is an awesome scarf pattern, one that I have been in love with for about a year, and that I don’t think will fight with the variegation of this awesome colourway. Now if only I didn’t have so many other things I need to finish first, because I am just itching to grab a needle and cast on!