Heaps of new stuff!

It seems my photography skills are getting worse and worse. Here's an attempt to show the Katia Surf yarn I was considering making into a shrug. After knitting up a sample however, I am thinking it might be a bit bright for me, and better suited to a scarf. In fact it might make a good Xmas pressie scarf.

I ripped up this sample at Stitch n Bitch last night and started it again in a pattern from Scarf Style, called Midwestern Moonlight. It's a good pattern for a variegated yarn as it seems to randomise the colour a bit more. When knit plain this yarn gets a bit of a blotchy, blobby effect, but MM breaks these patches up.

In other late breaking news, I got a bunch of magazines yesterday. This one, Sandra, is one I always find something I like in:

And wouldn't you know it! They had a pattern for my DREAM SHRUG!

Love it (though I'm willing to admit that it's more of a bolero than a shrug)! I am going to have to order the yarn from the internet because there's no chance of me getting it at my local yarn stores. I'd like to use the exact yarn they do as I really like the colour choices. That same mag also had this rather nice looking coat that might be worth a try, and which I would be happy to do in a substitute yarn:

Another mag I picked up, this time from the UK:

That one had some nice patterns, though nothing I feel compelled to do just now. But it did have some very cute finger puppets.

Then in cross stitch (one of my more secret fetishes because of the "dag" factor) there was this:

Normally cross stitch books are full of a lot of the teddy bear and kiddie type projects, but this had a couple of nice things. What I really liked in this mag though, was an ad for Barbara Thompson designs. She has some gorgeous cross stitch kits/patterns for sale, mostly in the Art Deco style of the 20's and 30's, including this cushion:

and this wall hanging:

Unfortunately she doesn't seem to have an Aussie stockist, but you can order her things online from the UK.