The halo of the alpaca draws you in

I had a joyous time out with friends last night, celebrating the news from my surgeon that all of the basal cell carcinoma is gone. We had beers, we had bar food, we had fun. I realized, as I looked around the table, how lucky I am and how much a person really needs close friends.Family is your family and you need them, but, to sound corny, friends are the family you choose.

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I am incredibly behind on gift knitting, due to apathy at the world and all that was in it for a few months. I'm pulling out the WIPs and really going at them. I still see IOUs in the holiday future but at least it's not for the lack of trying now. This first WIP is a year in the making (should have been LAST Christmas - whoops) but once you see it, you might see why it's taken so long. I've already made 2 of these very large blankets and they turned out so beautiful. I decided to make 2 more: one for my other mother and one for my sister.  Eventually I will make one for me. Although the blankets look light and airy, they are lofty and terrible knitting during any warm season. I choose Knit Picks Suri Dream yarn, which has been discontinued (don't worry, I bought the yarn for my blanket a while ago!). The colorway I chose for Lois is Emerald Isle and it's amazing.

This is 74% Suri Alpaca, 22% wool and 4% nylon yarn. The pattern is not online anymore either but it's size 19 needles and you cast on 144 stitches and just knit. You can do a border but I chose not to with this yarn. So I'm knitting until I get through all the balls of yarn (10 of them) and I'm down to 1.5 balls left. This is definitely TV knitting.

Even though it's large needles and stitches, the lofty halo of the alpaca really makes this a warm blanket!

See the fuzzy? Yep.

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My 2nd WIP is a lace scarf. Which is beautiful but taking up a lot of time, so probably not the best gift idea since I started it so late. More on that tomorrow!