Progress

I've finally finished the single-piece body of the Jali Cardigan and blocked it out:

It's not quite right, but I don't expect to be stopped by the Knitting Police and ordered to throw it away.  Now comes some sewing up and a great deal of stockinette knitting to put the collar/front piece on.  That part is major and will take, I'm guessing, the lion's share of the cone of yarn that remains.  Sort of boring, maybe, but it means I can watch subtitled foreign movies on my computer as I while away the rows (an activity which was absolutely impossible while I was counting lace stitches and cabling knots.)  I love the feel of it--it's going to be a fun light layer over a bright shirt this winter.

Meanwhile, having finally found the second yarn I wanted for the Strips of Stripes, I couldn't help starting the scarf [Ravelry link].  In San Francisco I acquired a mostly-black skein of Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in #5 graphite.  Nowhere could I find its opposite, white with a little gray, until Knit Purl in Portland, when a skein of Kathee Nelson Art Yarn Little Lambie in the "tweed" colorway lept into my hands.  Huzzah!  I cast on almost as soon as I got home.

It's very much like the original in the pattern photo (sorry about the Ravelry link above, but it's the only one I can find).  The stitch pattern is a combination of garter and slipped stitches that make a cool graphic look in black and white, but I think this is one I will knit again, probably with bright contrasting painted yarns.  I'm undecided about whether I will keep it or give it as a gift.  Do I know anyone in a cold climate who would appreciate it?

Newly Hatched Ptarmigan

It's a knitted ptarmigan, of course, the Ptarmigan cowl/neckwarmer design by Jared Flood.  Once I saw the design, I knew I had to make it at least once, and when I found this yarn: I knew I had found the perfect summer ptarmigan feathers:

 It's Madelinetosh sock yarn in a colorway called Parchment.

Here it is knitted up:

And being blocked (How did I have such a perfect blocking board, you ask?  By cutting a piece of cardboard to the dimensions specified for the finished product in the pattern, covering it in plastic, and severely stretching and pinning, that's how.):

And here's the final product, modeled by an actual Ptarmigan:

I can verify that it is a very warm little accessory, and will be very useful when the cold winter winds blow.  Now I have to make a winter Ptarmigan, and I have a skein of cream colored alpaca in the stash somewhere...