Alphabet Challenge #6 - Of Favorite Things, Fearless Fibers, Feather and Fan and Fads

So, one of my favorite Etsy shops? Fearless Fibers. One of my Readerville friends sent me a skein of their alpaca yarn in a gorgeous purple. So soft, so lustrous, so pretty. Just lookie here.

And another of my favorite things? The feather and fan stitch (sometimes called Old Shale). I know, it's a very old fashioned stitch. But something about the slow waves of the increases and decreases is very soothing. It's not a difficult stitch...one or two repeats of the pattern and it's memorized. It's a pattern you can ring changes on, too. Vary the number of increases and decreases. Vary the number of rows of stockinette. Vary the knitting and purling. Vary the width...it'll make a nice scarf, a comforting shawl, a cozy baby blanket. Use it for a hat. Use it as edging. See...versatile!

One of my favorite scarves (in fact, the one I am using today) is a straightforward Feather and Fan scarf. (I'll throw in a picture this evening...if I remember. Well, a day late, but here it is.)

So, how does this tie into fads? There are fads that sweep through the on-line knitting community...Clapotis...Monkey socks...Rogue...the Ribby Cardie. I think a lot of the fun of knitting comes from getting caught up in some of these fads (yes, I have a Clapotis...and I'd love to make another some day). You feel a part of something. And it's fun to exchange notes and to see how what you have on the needles might look like in a completely different yarn or color.

One of the recent fads that swept through the knitting world was the Chevron Scarf from Joelle Hoverson's book, Last Minute Gifts. Did I make one? Sure! I almost made two. The first one was out of some Mirasol Hacho (more about this in a couple of days, perhaps). But the two colors were too close to one another. I didn't get the nice striping effect as strongly as I wanted.

So that start got ripped out and I went with some other yarn. Classic Elite Countess that I had gotten from Webs. Nice and soft and a much wider scarf.

Finished and sent off to a friend.

And how does this tie back to feather and fan? That's what this scarf is basically -- a feather and fan stitch with no purl row.

And an edit to add that Knitnana is having a contest. If you feel like working up an opinion on a closure for a needle case, click on over!

Current Reading

I finished Clockers yesterday. Wow. Great book. I am looking forward to reading Lush Life, but I think I want to take a breather between these two books. I don't want to run the risk of having Lush Life spoiled because it's too similar to Clockers....

So I picked up an old-fashioned British mystery, Sheila Radley's Death in the Morning, a reissue by the Felony and Mayhem group. It's the first Inspector Quantrill mystery. Nothing earth-shattering or strenuous, just a pleasant read.