A couple of weeks of silence

I have been silent for a variety of reasons but mainly because I didn't have time to take photos in daylight. The weekend before last I was teaching and last weekend I made a last-minute trip to visit family so wasn't home. Anyway, to compensate, I have a lot of things to share.

This is an order from Jannette's Rare Yarns. The yellow is an unreleased color of Rowan Kid Silk Haze and the rest is Rowan Felted Tweed. I bought a grab-bag of oddballs to go with a bag of blue that I bought a few years ago. Jannette has great prices on Rowan and other yarns and her service is very good.

And now on to the Rhinebeck purchases. Yes, I know it has been a while since Rhinebeck but maybe this will help us re-live it.

First, a sampler of the soaps and salves I mentioned. I've represented all the companies but not all the products I bought. The salves (both of them) are wonderful. The soaps are currently mixed in with my sweaters.

I have been looking for buttons for this sweater for a while. I wanted to wear it without buttons but the front ends curl in or out and it doesn't look nice. While I was at Camp, I saw that Joyce Williams had put two buttons with a bow to hold them together on one of her sweaters. I decided to do that but have struggled to find the right buttons. I found these at Moving Mud but Sheila Ernst is also sending me a couple she made for me. I'll have to see which ones look right and maybe I'll figure out how to switch them around as needed.

Here's a closeup of the buttons. They have a gold glaze around the black center.

Lastly, I've made a lot of progress on the hand-to-hand sweater. I'm done with the sleeves and the yoke. Now I have to pick up and finish the neck before I pick up around the armholes and knit the body downwards. I am going to use a lace pattern called Fan Shell from one of the Walker treasuries. This is the center. You can see the hand-painting is creating a sort of argyle look. One of the advantages of knitting this way is that the width doesn't change very much in the yoke so the color effects tend to continue. Additionally, the reverse stockinette makes the colors blend together in a more attractive way than stockinette does.One sleeve. I have to bind off but otherwise it is done.
The other sleeve. The yarn marker shows where I started to knit straight so I could match the other sleeve to this one.

I hope this makes up for the long silence!