I Won! I Won!

Ok, it wasn't the mega-million dollar lottery, but it is pretty cool.  It was a contest on She Shoots Sheep Shots  for a subscription to Knit Circus, an online magazine.  KC has a unique scheme for revenue--the magazine is free to look at.  In order to get the patterns they show, you can either purchase them singly or subscribe and get all of them as a download.  I'm not sure how long my subscription will run, but I got the Winter Issue full pattern download.

The embarrassing thing is that I was notified of my win via a comment on my previous blog post.  Unaccustomed as I am (ahem, I'm talking to you, dear reader/lurker) to receiving comments on my literary effusions, it was many days before I noticed and responded. 

And maybe this is the place to also talk about what I found in the blog stats that Google keeps for me.  I have had hits from Russia, Australia, Denmark, Italy, India, and Hong Kong.  People were searching for the Jali cardigan, the Ptarmigan cowl, and vegan cookies mainly.  No, it's not a major international audience, but it still is kind of a buzz that the power of Google can bring the world to my dusty little old blog.

Darker shade of pale

This is old news, but I still want to show off, so bear with me. The items above were my contributions to the faaaaabulous prizes in the attendance promotion for one of my water aerobics classes. The prizes have to be something you've made yourself or gotten for free. Scarves are a synthetic pink/blue/silver ribbon yarn, two furry ones (they are so fluffy they almost look like real fur) made from and elann.com eyelash, and a black kettle-dyed merino one. Also in the group is the linen string bag you've seen previously, plus a water bottle from I can't remember where, a cookbook that I got as a prize elsewhere, and a pair of commercial snowman socks that are cute, but wouldn't fit my clodhoppers. They are all by now gone to their new homes, to ladies who have been maintaining their committment to fitness!
On to the real reason for the post. More swatcherama for the Winter Sunset fair isle cardigan. I took Lori's advice, bit the bullet, and got me the original background yarn. You see above the three tan colors I have now swatched. On the left the KnitPicks Palette in Oyster, on the right KnitPicks Palette in Camel heather, and in the middle the winnah, Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift 2-Ply in Eesit, all photographed on a background of snow for best contrast with the ultimate white. It even looks like the gauge will still work with the mixed yarns; I will know for sure when the washed and blocked new swatch is dry.

Nerdlinks: Eesit is one of the wonderful Shetland names for natural fleece color. Others are Moorit, Shaela, Awt, Emsket, Mooskit, Sholmit. The yarns are here; examples of the fleeces here.

I promise that the next time I bore you with this sweater I will have actually cast on! Aren't you thrilled?