In Which the Pirate Starts a New Challenge.

I like to buy souvenir sock yarn when I travel, especially if I can find something from a local dyer. This year’s yarn, which I got at Wasatch & Wool – a nifty little shop in Park City – is Salta Fingering from Yarnaceous Fibers. The colourway is “My Dinosaur Ate Your Unicorn,” and it’s beautifully dyed in shades of a mountain sunset. I love it. I don’t yet know what I’m going to knit with it, but I absolutely love it. I bet those colours pool in the most fantastic ways if the pattern is right. Since the care label says to hand wash, I think I won’t be making socks with this yarn…

But before I let myself knit this year’s souvenir yarn, I want to use some from a previous year! I got this skein of Malabrigo Sock in “Lotus” when we went to California in 2017, and paired it with some Fable Fingering from Sheep’s Clothing Yarn Co in the “Nebula Speckle” colourway. It’s a perfect match.

After Michael made his scarf and matching hat, I started to consider the possibility of a making brioche scarf or shawl for myself, but in a lighter weight yarn than he chose. After a lot of riffling through the Ravelry pattern library, I eventually settled on Sizzle Pop as a good challenging first brioche pattern to try. I’ve done swatches of brioche before, but never a whole project.

Over the weekend I cast on and started knitting. Of course, a triangular shawl which starts at the tip goes quickly at the beginning! I was able to get through the setup rows and then two pattern repeats already. The speckle yarn combined with the tonal purple is just *chef’s kiss* perfect. (And it hides a mistake that I made early on that I decided that I wasn’t going back to correct.) Hopefully I don’t lose all interest in the project when the rows get long. At least only 1/4 of the rows have patterning that requires me to follow along with the chart! That makes it seem like it goes fast. On the other hand, I keep spreading it out to look at it, which takes up some time. Less admiring, Pirate! More knitting, less looking!