purple baby alpacas from peru

Another day at home (3rd day in a row), feeling like crap (infected sinuses & ears, yuk), I decided to go out to the yarn store. I found exactly what I wanted.



80% Baby Alpaca, 20% Silk 4-ply dk in PURPLE (though the picture makes it look blue)
To make this:



Flower Basket Shawl by Evelyn Clark (Fiber Trends)





I did a few repeats of the pattern tonight. Since the yarn is so thick, it goes along pretty quickly. The pattern suggested size 10 (!) needles for dk weight yarn, but I'm using size 5. I tried it out with 8's, and it was too loose. 7's were too loose as well, so I just went down to 5's and it's turning out nicely. I agree with Eunny about using a smaller needle for the design to show better. I like the yarn overs in lace to make the holes, not the space inside individual stitches.

I also changed the double decreases in the pattern. They call for a sl1, k2tog, psso, which I did for the first two rows. You can see it in the picture above on the left on the stem - there are two twisted looking stitches. I decided to change it to the way the double decreases are done on the jaywalkers - sl2, k1, psso. It makes the decreases invisible, and makes the lines of the pattern flow better. This way the stems all flow into eachother, instead of looking sloppy.

This is for my friend for her birthday September 1st. Her favorite color is purple, which was a bit hard to find, but I am really happy with this yarn and pattern - it will be pretty.

I have watched a ton of movies the last couple of days. I won't mention one of them, because I didn't like it at all - though it won some awards, which I don't understand. Besides that, The Pallbearer, Miss Congeniality, 28 Days, Boiler Room, Bereft (boring, though it does remind me a bit of how I've been feeling the last 5 months), Annapolis, and I'm in the middle of Firewall. I also have Derailed to watch. I liked Annapolis - it reminded me a bit of a really nice day I had a few years ago (including the lead character's name). Sometimes I wish I was 17 again.