Europos

FO Friday: Worsted Weight Europos Scarf

I finished my scarf! Here it is blocking:

I learned from the first (DK-weight) sample that this pattern pulls in a lot, since it’s basically 1×1 ribbing with regular increases and decreases thrown in. So I was rather aggressive with the blocking this time, knowing it will spring back a certain amount when it’s unpinned.

Quick specs:

Pattern: My own Europos Scarf

Yarn: Malabrigo Rios, one skein in Vaa. Rios is in the running for my favorite yarn ever. It’s as soft as butter, but fairly hard-wearing thanks to the twist.

Notes: I luurve this pattern. It’s just interesting enough to not be boring, but it’s easily memorized. Perfect travel knitting. It pretty much lived in my purse for the past week. This pattern played really well with the variegated quality of the yarn, too. It was so nice to not have to worry about pooling.

In other news, the Bevin sweater re-knit is nearly completed too! Just a few ends to weave in and blocking left.

Now, maybe you’re wondering why I’m spending all this time and effort reknitting samples when I could be working on new designs. The truth is, I have an exciting month ahead of me. My wonderful print pattern distributor, Stitch Sprouts, offered me the chance to share time in an exhibitor booth at the TNNA summer trade show!

For those of you who don’t know, TNNA is an abbreviation for The National NeedleArts Association. Their annual trade shows are a big deal–loads of knitting and fiber related businesses, yarn store owners, and very well-known designers attend. I’m feeling a little bit out of my depth, to tell the truth, but I’m slowly getting a handle on everything I need to get done in order to have a successful booth.

Stay tuned for more preparations!

WIP Wednesday: Blue and Green Edition

I’m still trucking along on my Bevin re-knit. The back and front are done and sewn together:

Actually, the sleeves are done too since that picture was taken. Now it’s sewing up time (urgh), which means there’s a lot of this action happening:

Sigh. So anyway, I’m taking breaks between sewing up sessions to knit other things. I decided to re-knit the sample for my Europos Scarf as well, using the gorgeous Malabrigo Rios in Vaa I showed off in my last post. It’s coming along nicely!

Seeing a color theme yet? If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might have noticed I gravitate toward blues and greens (preferably both at once!) above all other colors. I kept trying to make myself branch out, but the truth is that the colors are flattering on me, photograph beautifully, and are fun to knit. I think maybe I should just embrace it.

And just as I was thinking this, the yarn arrived for a secret design for a yarn company.

The pic is intentionally hard to make out (secret, remember?), but it’s dark shades of–you guessed it–green and blue.