Most of my crocheting has been fairly simple work, that doesn’t require fine yarn — the thread I use for the doilies, and the yarn I’ve used for afghans, etc., has all been readily available at the box stores (Jo-Ann’s, Michael’s, etc.). But as I’ve gotten into Ravelry, I’ve been bitten by the fine yarn bug, and filled with a desire to work more with natural fibers besides cotton.

As luck would have it, Monday was the big annual sale at my local yarn shop. Cheers! I picked up two kinds of sock yarn (both superwash wool/nylon blends), and some wonderful bulky Peruvian highland wool. It will be quite a while, I’m sure, before I have any results to show you in the sock department, but the bulky wool worked up lickety-split into a wonderful Moebius cowl:

Looks green, doesn’t it? And it is…until you look closely at the yarn, and see that it’s actually a blend of blue and yellow fibers. It gives a wonderful depth to the color.

It took me two tries to get the twist right, because I wasn’t paying close enough attention the first time around, but I’m very pleased with the final, successful, result — and I was particularly grateful for it this morning, when it was only 13F outside on the way to work. This is one TOASTY cowl! 🙂

If you’re interested in making one for yourself, here’s a link to the project page on Ravelry.

This is (some of) what’s been keeping my crochet hook busy over the past two months:

I decided that Christmas gifts for my office were all going to be handmade this year; it’s a good thing I started early! In addition to the doilies above, I crocheted (also in thread) a coaster for a friend in the building next door, and six cotton baskets/bowls for the guys at work (I filled the bowls with chocolates ;-)). It took about twenty minutes to go around distributing everything to folks’ desks after hours, which was fun.

Additional detail:

This one I made for my boss:

You’d think I’d be sick of making doilies by now, wouldn’t you? But, the bug continues — now I’m working on a lily of the valley pattern that’s quite pretty, for a friend out in the Twin Cities…