New Year's Visit with Old Friends

Last week I packed up a few knitting projects and headed to Pittsburgh (PA) for a visit with family and old friends, including GK who says she checks my blog "every day." (Hi Geet!) Before I left, I started a couple projects to take with me. Below is the beginning of Branching Out (from Knitty) for which I'm using a really lovely yarn that I found at Fearless Fibers. After a few false starts (when the instructions say "cast on loosely," they're not kidding!), I got the hang of the pattern, which I think looks great in this yarn. This is my first attempt at something lacey, and although it's turning out okay (all those bumps will go away after blocking, right?!), I decided it was just too complicated for travel-knitting. SO--

I started another scarf with some Paton's yarn I'd bought a month ago because I liked the combination of blues (the color is denim marl), and I thought the marled effect would work well for a nice long scarf.
I wanted a simple pattern with long lines to show off the flecks of light blue. I consulted Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns and decided to try the Italian chain rib, which so far is giving me the effect I wanted--which isn't evident from the tiny picture above. I'll post a better picture later.

On Thursday, GK and I spent a cosy afternoon at Knit One, a wonderful shop in Squirrel Hill where we did some knitting and shopping. Even though I really didn't have any more room in my suitcase, I caved and bought some sock yarn (hey, it was on sale!) as well as some pretty Louisa Harding yarn (Kimono Angora and Kimono Ribbon) to make the (very girly) gloves pictured below (apologies for the bad photo--it's dark and rainy here, and I had to use the flash which is reflecting off the cover and makes it look like the sun is rising over the model's head).
After leaving Knit One, we headed back to GK's for Chinese take-out and a great visit catching up with MK, JG, and Miranda (who, although she looks a lot like my Katie, is much much calmer).