love

i'm in love... with Knitpicks Andean Silk, that is. I got the yarn for melissa's hourglass sweater in the mail today. I'll admit - at first, I was really disappointed. The yarn on the skein had the stickiness of acrylic and I wanted to cry. But when I knit up my gauge swatch, the yarn transformed before my eyes (or fingers). It is so smooth and soft. It's got terrific drape. I can't wait! I would be more worried about keeping the sweater for myself, except that the color I chose will look terrible on me and terrific on Melissa (its a deep, bright blue -- "pool"). I made no progress on socks tonight and worked only on the hourglass and now I'm up to the second decrease. I'll post progress pictures tomorrow. It's too dark to do it now (not to mention too late!)

Oh, and Theresa, to answer your question -- I used about five and a half skeins of the Andean Treasure alpaca for my "arms" (you can probably do it in five... I had some problems and wasted a little yarn during the ribbing fiasco).