I was hoping to have a book to show you but life intervened a few times. Instead, here's a teaser: it will be a soft cover book with decorative stitch positions on the spine - can you see it? I was having trouble getting the camera and my software to capture the handmade paper I'll be using for the cover - it is fairly grey with flecks of color throughout and leaning a bit lavender overall. I found I had some grey specialty paper for the signatures that were a perfect match. I'll be using dark purple thread to sew in the signatures which are all ready to go. Prep of the cover will be an easy folding method once the paper is cut to size.
In the meantime, I've started a scarf from the unraveled yarn, getting past the tricky start to settle into the easy pattern. Perhaps you can see the knit stitches running up both sides? They are the result of a step in the pattern that forms what is called an I-cord edging that finishes the edges as you knit, no rolling or plain edge if it were not there. Very neat. The pattern increases a stitch every fourth row until the piece is about 12 inches wide, then decreases at the same rate until the end. It should work a bit like a cowl but with tails. You can see the pattern with pictures over on ravelry.com here. The bag it's sitting in is one my maid of honor made for me probably in the 1980's. I remember her taking me to a fabric store and telling me to pick out two fabrics so she could make this for me. Are we surprised that I chose fabrics in the brown range?
A couple of quick updates: Not sure why I think I can keep staring down my studio and expect things I can't find to magically appear, but that's pretty much what I'd been doing trying to figure out where my Posca pens went, so sure was I that they should be out in the open like so much of my painting supplies. But what if, in the last time I felt I had to "tidy up" the space including the adjoining bathroom where I often use paints, I actually put them away somewhere, like in the cabinet below the sink? And that is where I found them even though I don't keep other paints there, just stamp pads and various spray cans of fixatives and basting adhesives. I honestly have no recollection of putting them there, logical or not.
And remember my snapdragons so valiantly hanging on in spite of the cold weather? Not long ago I noticed the yellow bloom was gone from the plant in the separate pot. I assumed a deer had nibble it away. A few days later I took a closer look to see the deer had come back and nibbled the plant down to about an inch above the dirt. Another few days later, I opened the blinds to see that the ones in the long planter were gone - totally gone - eaten down to the ground! I have to admit, the forage along the edge of the lawn has been getting pretty slim, most leaves gone, even the white berries almost all gone. A little salad from my planters could not be resisted! Now we've had a good snow with temps below freezing to keep it there, so the snapdragons probably would have succumbed to that anyway.
