Briochey

I recently bought the latest issue of Vogue Knitting for an article on brioche stitch in the round written by Meg Swansen. I'd read about brioche stitch, but I'd never actually dabbled with it and thought it might be useful to make thick & warm items for Dulaan. So my first item made in brioche was this hat:



To be honest, it's a bit shorter than I'd like it to be, but I think it would work well for a small child and it is ever so plush and warm, warm, warm. And I liked the stitch so much - bold yet simple, and thick and squishy at the same time, that I decided it would be perfect for the scarf I wanted to make with the Briar Rose yarn I got at Rhinebeck. The dragon skin pattern, while nice, just wasn't showing off the best characteristics of the yarn the way I'd hoped.



I don't think I'll ever get tired of this yarn. The color repeats are short, so it doesn't stripe and the yarnovers of brioche stitch make for a nice, soft blending of the blues, greys, browns and greens. The colors are muted and subtle, which I love, and the stitch really shows the soft hand of the yarn, which is what really sold me on it in the first place. I'm looking forward to being able to wear this.

And speaking of things to wear, I was sitting here the other night pouting a bit over the whole vest debacle I wrote about in the last post and shivering at the cold, and I decided to click on over to Webs, where they had Araucania Nature Wool Chunky on clearance. I bought enough to make myself a sweater to wear on these cold nights and am eagerly awaiting its arrival.

Naughty Toys

No, it's not what you're thinking. A couple weeks ago, David's customer service rep, Mendy, sent him some SpongeBob figures you can put in water to make them expand. David's a SpongeBob nut, so they were a guaranteed hit. It was a little odd to see SpongeBob expand into what looked like a garishly-painted piece of deep-fried tofu, but there is another which is even more unsettling.




I give you Penis Head Patrick.