Okay, how could I resist Wool Tree Mill’s exquisite wooden wool, um, trees? More like spindles to me. Anyhow, they are gorgeous and turn smoothly — the metal yarn guides can lie down out of the way if one prefers. A very graceful way to manage yarn. I keep mine in the living room next to my chair and just pop whatever yarn I am knitting on one of the spindles. When I am done, I just put the yarn back in my bag. Nice. (And, truly, they are well-designed and the workmanship is impressive).
In other knitting news, I have received approval on the stitch patterns for Sonja’s baby’s “Yzma Blanket” — from Sonja. The swatch shows the flat cable pattern she selected from one of my stitch books and also several experiments with accompanying stitch patterns for the edges. Our old friend Roman Rib ( which is at the bottom of the swatch) wins.
I will dance about with numbers and graph paper this afternoon and should be ready to cast on tonight or tomorrow. I always give tremendous thought to the edges (cast-on, selvedges, bind-off) and the transitions between stitch patterns. These nearly invisible features of the blanket will make or break the overall appearance. They can be tricky, too, especially the transitions. But it is my favorite kind of puzzle 🙂