Mara's Got the Blues

… and so do I! Before I talk about my beautiful Mara, I need to get you guys up to date on my yarn diet. That’s right, I’m on a yarn diet. Yes, I know that they seem to be the fad lately but I really DO need to go on one and not only because I’m running out of yarn space but also because I’m supposed to be saving money so we can buy a place next year. SO, that means no more yarn spending for a while. I’ve decided on 3 months to start with. Why? Because the last yarn purchase I made was on July 17 and on October 17th (exactly 3 months away) is the New York Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck. I intend on going and I most definitely intend on purchasing some yarn, so it’s important to save up for that moment, I think. I was very bad the last week before my yarn diet, though, and hit up *three* big updates and spent WAY too much money on them. But my husband is just happy that there will be no more yarn trickling in once a week (though he knows about my sock clubs and those are already paid for). My last big purchases included Fiberphile (oh my god if you STILL haven’t purchased from Georgia – and you know I’ve been raving about her since February – please do so! Especially before she gets way too big for you to be able to try out any of her amazing yarn without TOO much effort – some effort, but not a lot), The Sanguine Gryphon and Wollmeise. The Wollmeise and Fiberphile haven’t arrived yet but I did get my lovely shipment from Gryphon and that included my wonderful six skeins of Bugga! (rav link) that I managed to score:

The six Bugga! are on the left and include Tomato Frog, Hogwood Bonking Beetle, Elegant Sheepmoth, Sharpshooter Leafhopper and Blowfly. I am in love with all of them but my two favorites are definitely Tomato Frog and Blowfly:

Check out that red!!!

I love the little bit of blue running through the Blowfly!

I did get two skeins of Hogwood Bonking Beetle but I sold one of them to a Bugga! virgin who wasn’t able to get any in the last update. Trying to spread the Bugga! love around a bit. 😉

The other skeins on the top picture are three of Dance in Foxtrot and two of Eidos one in Polimarchus and one in the to-die-for gorgeous Clio:

Honestly, that would probably be enough yarn for me to last the three months (okay MORE than enough) but since I was able to stay up for a Wollmeise update AND Fiberphile just happened to have one as well, I just had to buy those too. I will post up pictures of those lovelies when I get them so you can all ooh and aah over my last yarn purchases for three months… not that it really matters all that much to you, LOL!

In actual *knitting* news, I’ve finished the lovely Mara that I am completely in love with:

The garter stitch is just SO yummy and I love the pleated edge and just the absolutely beautiful simplicity of it.

It’s a great on-the-subway knitting project too as it’s mostly garter stitch and then all rib stitch for the border. Can’t get much simpler than that with such scrumptious results! A must-knit in my book. 🙂

Pattern – Mara by Madelinetosh (rav link)
Yarn – Madelinetosh Tosh Worsted in Baltic (rav link | store I used)
Needle – US7 (4.5mm)
Cast on – June 1, 2009
Cast off – July 24, 2009
Modifications – Instead of the K2P2 called for at the edging I did K3P2 to make the difference between the inner and outer edging more obvious. I only knit the K3P2 section for 2.5″, not the called for 4″. Also, I made some changes at the increase row before the edging and during the transition to make my YO’s line up right. I’m not sure it was written correctly in the pattern but I couldn’t get it to work without some tweaking on my part.

I just loved how it came out and the pups have so much fun watching me do a photoshoot (they just don’t understand what I’m doing, LOL) that I had to include them in it! Kubrick didn’t enjoy it much but Hitchcock thought it was all great fun. 😀