Sharfik

On Monday night, I finished Sharfik, a very elegant scarf pattern by Grumperina. I'm very happy with this one- the pattern turned out quite well, and the yarn (Paton's Classic Merino- my new fave) is a great match in terms of gauge and stitch definition. And, I'm so surprised by how soft it is. The color is the same olive green I used on the Backyard leaves scarf. I did that because I had some left over, and thought I could use it. In the end, though I used exactly 2 balls of the Classic Merino Wool, and didn't want to make it any longer (it's about 58" long). The men on my side of the family are not tall, and I don't think any of them would want a really long scarf.
As great as it is to finish this one, I realized I have at least 3 more projects, and only 19 days (less for the ones to be mailed!). Yikes.
It took quite a few false starts, but I did manage to start my next Gift project- the Phyllotaxis Scarf by Norah Gaughan in Knitting Nature (can you tell I like this book?). Once again- classic Merino wool, this time in a lovely brown. It's not a hard pattern, but there's a chart in the book that I need to refer to a lot, so it may not be run around knitting.
Over the weekend, I bought some more yarn for other projects: The Wildfoote Sock yarn is just stash enhancement- it was on sale, and I liked the colors. I bought 500 yards of baby Alpaca DK with the idea of using it to make Shifting Sands (yet another Grumperina Scarf). I love the color- a great blue red. Unfortunately, it's not going to work. The yarn is too soft and won't have enough stitch definition for the cabling. Anyone know of a good scarf patten for a super soft Alpaca? I may try a shawl. Next, I picked up yarn for this very goofy project- a knit Nativity. A few months ago the girls and I were at the LYS and they spied this pattern. How could I say no? So, I finally went looking for yarn and settled on some acrylic DK weight yarn. No, not heirloom yarn, but hopefully they will come out cute. I love this kind of Christmas stuff- I'm a sucker. I plan on working on it over the next year- one a month, and hopefully it will be ready for next Christmas. The girls will love it.
And finally, I can't help but comment on the two very exciting things occurring in Gainesville right now. Of course number one is the Gators- (if you click, you get to see the best looking QB in college football) they won the SEC and are in the National Championship game on January 8th (and you would think that every resident of this town was somehow involved in that fact). Secondly, we have a Fresh Market. I realize this is non event for many of you, but here in a "metro region" with maybe 250,000 people, it's huge. When you live in a college town, you take what you can get.