Labor day weekend projects

I was working on the lovely fair isle tam this weekend and noticed something odd. My increases didn't seem to make the hat as wide as I expected. I checked my gauge. The swatch was 5.75 sts/inch. The ribbing on the hat is 6.5 sts/inch and the rest of the hat varies from 6-7 sts/inch. Argh. Abandon ship!


Now that the size problem has been solved on the oriel lace blouse, it's time to work on the sleeves. Yes, that's it. I'm not abandoning the hat, I'm going back to what I should have been working on all along. The knitting goddess was punishing me for not working on this beautiful project. The pattern has you use 4 different needle sizes in the first 8 inches of the sleeve, going from large to small to create a flare at the wrist. I was skeptical of how well this would actually work, but it seems to have been quite effective.


My new project desk arrived Saturday. Here I show the most important feature of the desk - the stash storage. I had yarn stashed in various drawers and bins. Somehow now that it's all in one place it doesn't seem like all that much yarn. See that in the upper right? That's a notions bin. That could easily be moved to make room for MORE YARN.