One Last Victory Lap

This past Saturday was the last time I spent a Saturday knitting at my LYS. I had to bring my own chair, as the comfy seats that used be the focal point of the seating area were gone. It was rather sad to sit there by myself (as there were no other chairs in the seating area) and look around at the quickly emptying shelves. I thought it was appropriate that during my brief time there, I finished a project. And in keeping with tradition, I did one last "victory lap" -- a quick run through the aisles while holding the FO above my head -- after binding off the last stitch.

What was that FO, you might ask? Well, I blocked it Saturday night and had to wait until Sunday evening for it to be dry and until yesterday to take pictures, but here is the cabled scarf in all its glory:

I blocked this pretty aggressively (and it was a breeze, thanks to my blocking wires), so the finished scarf has a lot of drape to it. I did not stretch it quite as much as I could have lengthwise, but even so it's nearly seven feet long. Personally, I like a long scarf; the more length a scarf has, the more I can wrap it around my neck and face on those really miserable, blustery winter days.

I'm quite pleased with how the cable is popping after blocking as well; I was a little concerned that it wouldn't as I was knitting because the yarn has a fair amount of fuzz to it. Of course, a lot of that fuzz ended up all over me as I was knitting, so I suppose it wasn't as big of a factor as I initially thought.

Despite the fuzz, I did really love working with this yarn, and I would gladly knit myself a sweater out of it. It is on the slightly coarser side, so it's definitely something I'd wear over a shirt (not that I do otherwise with most of my sweaters), but it is so wonderfully woolly. It's definitely not over processed, and there was a good deal of dirt that came out in the water when I washed it. To me, this yarn is as close as I can get to spinning directly from a fleece without actually having to do the prep and spinning myself.

Now that the scarf is done (and the pattern is off to my tech editor), I have only one project currently on my needles, and that's my handspun socks. I'm about halfway through the foot of the second sock, so those won't be a WIP much longer. Fortunately I got yarn wound yesterday for the final design sample for the collection; with any luck, that will be on the needles very soon.