New projects and some yarn notes

So I'm finally done with everything. Yay! I'm not going to post any pictures of my grandmother's poncho just yet, as I want to try and submit it to Knitty. But here's an update about what I'm working on.

I went yarn shopping with my mother to get me a birthday present, and I discovered a wonderful new designer that I had never heard of before named Elsebeth Lavold. I love many many many of her designs, and my mother and I bought the yarn for the pattern Ljud, in her Viking Knits collection. It is beautiful, wonderful, and I can't wait to start it. I bought two of her other books and I have leafed through each of them and read the patterns and examined the charts at least four times for each one.

I'm also working on Scarf Style's "Stripes and Bobbles", which is turning out to be a very very fast knit. It also looks like it's only going to use about half of the yarn I bought for it, so I'm thinking of making two and giving them as presents. Because the yarn is reasonably thick and the stripes are very narrow it's very fast going: I've only been working three days or so (and very intermittenly as I had huge amounts of homework to do (and still do, but who's counting?)), but I'm more than half done already.

I also found some of Noro's Daria yarn (which is gorgeous) on sale, and I bought five skeins. The neighborhood yarn store had a pattern for a tiny bag using one skein so I bought the pattern and I'm planning to make these for gifts. (Yes, after the panic this New Year's for getting presents, I want to stock up in advance.) Plus the yarn knits up nicely and looks beautiful. Very very reccomended, but with a couple of warnings:

1. DO NOT wind the yarn using a yarn winder. Just don't do it. THe yarn doesn't stretch and is very smooth, which means it slips off of itself very easily. So you have to keep the tension very tight when winding it, and then it's still likely to fall apart. Make a ball; that way earlier layers are covered up and can't fall out and get tangled. It took me three tries to wind it properly, and even with a rubber band around it it wouldn't stay together.
   
2. Get needle ends for your needles for when you put the knitting down. I hadn't dropped stitches in a while before this, but I've been dropping them every time I put the knitting down.
   
3. Don't be surprised if you have a hard time working the needles at first. Most yarns stretch and move with your hands. This one doesn't, which means (a) that it's good for bags but (b) that you feel like your hands are tied together while you're knitting it.
   

That said, I really like the way this yarn looks and feels after it's knit up, and I liked shopping for buttons to go with it. (Actually, I just like shopping for buttons. I found these really cute ones in the shape of hats. Ok, I'll shut up now.)

I'm also still waiting for my yarn to start on Tubey, I still have a half-finished wrap from Wrap Style that I'm working on, and my stash is still ridiculously big. Oh, well.