Caught the flu bug this week and have been knitting while not being able to sleep, watching all sorts of interesting public television, everything from cake decorating to ballet and everything in between, trying to relax and get better.  Visiting all my favorite craft blogs has been heavenly, and finally our weather has turned sunny and warm again.  Suzi sent me a wonderful link to a free pattern for these adorable Fair Isle Easter Eggs that I wanted to share, and just thinking about making them lifts my spirits, knowing that Spring is just around the corner.  I’ve been busy this week doing some simple quilting, making another hat to match the one below, this time in pink and red, and finished a few mittens from 12 Months of Knitting.  It feels so good to rest, and I feel so guilty that I’m not at work today!  So I’m trying to make the most of it, push away the guilty feelings, and indulge myself in a little rest, some ice cream, and some relaxing knitting.  If anyone wants to know the colors I used for the yarn, just leave me a post and I’ll send you back an email with the numbers.  This was my first real attempt at swatching a color scheme different from that called for in the pattern and I found the article in Knitter’s Handbook to be really helpful – the basic idea they recommended is to look for the same tone when you are substituting colors (dark for dark, light for light etc.).  I love coral pinks, all my lipsticks and blushes and favorite shirts are in this color so I couldn’t help but feel happy working with these colors.  I am using rosewood circs on this project but wish I had some ebony needles with the Koigu since it is so slippery, but I didn’t have them in the right size, so to compensate, I’ve been holding the yarn fairly snug (triple wrapped around both pointer fingers) and that seemed to improve the results quite a bit.  I found some Colinette Jitterbug yarn that was variegated with all the Koigu colors I picked out so I snuck a little bit of that in there and found them to be fairly compatable in terms of thickness.  I goofed on color selection across about ten rows and had to frog and redo, but the ripped out yarn turned into a pretty picture so I thought I would include that here as a testimonial to my hard work!  The 49th Parallel Mitt pattern that I’m working on from 12 Months of Knitting had an error in it for the decreases at the top, so I winged it and finished the first one, and it came out ok.  It took me an hour to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it, so I’m bound and determined to get this right for the second one.  Somehow I thought I could whip up a pair of these magically in time to give them away as gifts on the week-end to some visiting relatives.  Even though they were done on size 8 and 9 needles, its still pretty time consuming to finish just one.  The yarn reminds me of pink lemonade, which was alot of fun to work with and its very soft (Malabrigo).  Hoping that you have not overdosed on pink yet (I think I’m almost there at this point), these are the scraps from my new quilt (these are the background/filler fabrics…I forgot to include the focal fabrics in the photo but you can see them here.  Its called “Pastel Antique Flower Collection” by Lecien.).  Its been difficult finding the type of floral fabrics that I fell in love with here, (similiar to the small photo of the pink and red rose below) but it seemed like a relatively good time to search for pink fabrics since the quilt shops here are blooming with Valentine’s fabrics.  One thing I noticed about searching for rosebud fabrics, the background colors range from bright white to cream, beige and everything inbetween and the range of pinks out there is incredible.  It was alot harder than I thought getting the right mix so I definitely recommend starting a collection and building it up slowly over time.  Its truly difficult finding the kind of hand painted rose chintz floral prints that are truly eye popping.  I’m only cutting out very large squares and sewing them together, just about all the time I have these days, but its been so satisfying getting something up on the design wall, arranging and rearranging the colors and designs, and gives me a nice creative outlet that is different from knitting.  I love the beautiful sensation of knitting that is quiet and peaceful, and then sometimes I like needing to get up and move around alot and have something ready made to work with, sort of a little bit more of an instant gratification!  We (did I say ”we”?!) are also working on a new hat for my son with some Rowan wool cotton.  I recruited my son to help me work on it and it was a ton of fun sitting there knitting together, having my bud side by side.  I promised him I would play a video game with him if he gave it a try.  We found the pattern in Hats Gloves Scarves by Louisa Harding.  The beautiful bright sky blue in the photo is a color that seems unfindable so we substituted with a sort of duck egg blue that tones it down a bit but still looks nice I think.  Isn’t it just my luck to catch on to a really fabulous color selection from a pattern like this two years after it comes out and one color is no longer available or at least unfindable!   Perhaps you can tell which rows he worked on and which ones were mine?!  His stitches are a bit on the tight side but I think its all too precious because it came from his own hands and heart.  The hat below, made out of Rowan 4 ply Botany was a little scratchy so it can’t really be worn except for on the coldest days so I thought this one might be softer for most of the winter when its not super cold outside.  We worked on it mostly last week-end which was a long rainy, chilly and gloomy weather kind of week-end, so it was nice to have something on hand that gave us something to stay busy with.  I keep telling myself we’ll wear these things at the ice skating rink and I have still yet to make it over there on the week-end!  Well, I am getting sleepy so hopefully I will get a good night sleep and be ready for work in the morning.  Thanks for dropping by and listening and may your Super Bowl Sunday be a good one (shopping, knitting, etc. while the guys are watching the game)!