I Am Easily Distracted

I'm plugging away at my spectrum scarf. It's moving along a little faster now that I've got a rhythm going with the Russian joins but it's still tedious. I've finished 6 out of 16 color sequence repeats. (The pattern calls for 12 but I'm not making the hat so I figured out there is enough yarn for 16.) I decided my favorite colors are the two greens, Jelly and Fern. They're both pretty on their own but are even prettier when they're combined. I got to thinking that it would be fun to make something stripey with just those two colors so I started looking through my books for a pattern that would work and found Viola in "French Girl Knits" by Kristeen Griffin-Grimes. A trip to the yarn store was exactly the distraction I was looking for so I got three each of Fern and Jelly. The two knit together look like this:

I've decided that I'm not going to do the stripes because I don't think the pattern, which is for a cardigan with short sleeves and lace detail in a contrasting color at the neck line and on the sleeves, would look good with stripes. Originally, I thought I'd use Jelly for the lace trim but I don't think there will be enough contrast. I think a very pale lavender would look nice but I won't have to make that decision for a while.

I've also finally finished the first of the Fair Isle socks.

This is very gratifying since I've gotten this sock down to the toe and ripped it back to the cuff twice. I was beginning to think I wouldn't be able to make them work and finally decided that I didn't mind if the foot wasn't patterned. I think they look better this way and they're certainly more comfortable.