The Magic Scarf (thanks Paulina!)

Dear Friends!

I have finally found a use for the wonderful 3 balls my friend Gunhild had bought me. My friend Paulina (check out her knitting blog!) gave me this fantastic idea of the magic scarf! It is so easy, and works well with big, beautiful yarns, because the resulting stitches are very simplistic. You cast on an X number of stitches, and on first round you K1, YO, K1, YO, K1 etc. to end. Then, you go on with stockinette stitch and, in last round, you BIND OFF only ODD stitches, and you drop all EVEN stitches. I.e.: K1, drop 1, K1, close one stitch, drop 1, K1, close one stitch, etc... the dropped stitches will magically rip (you have to help them!), but they were the YO stitches, so the scarf won't break into pieces! It will be tighter (the scarf) and veeeeery airy. Now, I did a terrible mistake at first, I casted on too many stitches and the result was... sort of a blanket... URGH... well, I ripped everything and here is the final result: my first magic scarf!

Gràcies, Paulina! :)

Red Diamond Scarf + Red Hat...

Dear friends,

Yes, I have been ill (fever with very hot temperature :( - so I haven't knitted for one day, but I really tried. Nevertheless, today I feel much better, so I used the whole day to finish the Red Diamond scarf and the little matching hat. The pattern was just lovely. I mean the stitch pattern. There wasn't a specific scarf pattern anyway. I took a lovely stitch pattern from a magazine and simply multiplied it x 8, and knitted for as long as I wanted. For the hat, I took a different leafy pattern. For the hat, I took one size bigger needles and double yarn. Problems? Well... I always have this tendency to bind off near the end of the project, maybe for nerves, maybe because I really want to finish... and most of the times I have this feeling that it's TOO short. The scarf... is not too short... but should be ideally longer? I have no idea. I am always afraid that my works are too short. Ack. And the hat? Just the same feeling. Is it too narrow? Is it too short? Will it fit my partner's cousine?

Well, I cross my fingers. The leafy pattern looks lovely anyway ;) Let me know if you want the instructions. Oh, by the way, the little tails at each end look a bit mediocre, don't they? Hehe...

Love!
Flavio :)

Found a "baby" for my "fat" sweater...

Dear friends,

I was worried because I thought I would never be able to give this sweater to anyone. But I visited my parents in Spain and I thought... uhm. Maybe I know someone.... my mother has this huge, hairy King Kong in the living room. wow. He is wide enough... my mother wanted to try and... here we have the newly dressed King Kong. IT was very pleased with the sweater. I brought two flags from Basel (the Swiss flag and the Basel flag), and we thought we would make some funny photos. My brother and my father took them. LOL!! The pics are too funny! :) I hope you like them! :)

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Love and hugs from HOME (finally!)
Fla :)