plans and pipe dreams

Boy have the writing prompts for nablopomo ever been leaving me cold. I'm not limited to writing about crafts by any means, but I'm just not really intrigued by the prompts I've seen thusfar. But it's also possible that as an academic who teaches writing I'm especially sensitive to what constitutes a good prompt. And that's all I'd like to say about that.

With regard to the sexy-ass yarn picture I've posted above, I'd just like to share with you a couple things I'm about to cast on. First of all, that yarn at the top of the page is Alisha Goes Around Richness of Martens Fingering, and it is GORGEOUS. I first saw her yarn when I was visiting Minty a while back and she was working on these socks. She had already finished one sock and I was totally taken with the yarn and kept harassing her to let me try the sock on. She's a ridiculously nice friend, so she let me pretty much fondle the sock repeatedly, putting it on, taking it off, examining it up close, etc. She was even nice enough not to point out that my feet are like 18 times bigger than hers and I was clearly going to stretch out the sock. Anyway I knew right then I had to have the yarn. Fortunately Loopy now carries some of Alisha's yarns, so I was able to pick up a couple skeins. So as much as I'd like to cover my feet in merino-cashmere-nylon the Alisha yarn, this is destined to become a sweater: a plain and simple pullover by Veera Välimäki, who has somehow gotten to become one of my favorite designers without my ever having made one of her patterns. How did that happen?! I really need a plain stockinette in the round project going at all times, so this sweater seems like a great choice.

Next up is some silky feeling regia wool-bamboo!

I'm actually going to be casting this on tonight as some Empoisonnées. Yarnissima has some gorgeous sock designs and I'm eager to give them a try!

And finally, I leave you with a shot of my official yarn photography assistant, Professor Crankypants:

Malcolm would like to know where his dinner is...