Birmingham trip knitting

I had a very productive weekend, what with all the flying and sitting in airports and all. I had sent my sis the hat I had made for my bro-in law. That was a mistake, since she loved it and planned to keep it. So I needed to make another hat (yay! another hat!). I went through my Malabrigo but most of my colors, except for the black, were pretty girly. Then I saw a skein I had bought just last week (was it only last week?) at Article Pract. The colorway is Cypress, and it's a dark dark green, almost black. I hated to give it up, but anything for my bro-in-law. On Thursday night I cast on and knitted about 3 rows of a new Brangelina. I finished the hat on the plane, and it came out looking pretty nice, if I do say so myself. The color doesn't really come through in the picture, but take my word for it, it's beautiful in daylight. I almost decided to keep the hat for myself, since it was so cold in B'ham, but decided to wear the hat I had brought for myself instead.

On Saturday we went to Knit Nouveau, a great little knit shop in Birmingham. I wasn't going to buy anything because of Stitches West coming up, but of course I couldn't resist. I was actually very restrained, as you can see in the picture. The variegated red/pink/white and black/gray are Araucania Atacama Nature Alpaca; 100% hand dyed alpaca and just as yummy as it looks in the picture. I have no idea what I'll do with it, but I loved it and couldn't resist.

I bought the Noro Kureyon to make a Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf. Petra also couldn't resist the Noro and free pattern and bought a different colorway. Since neither of us had needles of the right size with us and I actually didn't have double points in size 8, I bought the packet and some end caps and let Petra use 2 of them. We both were about 2/3 done by the time we got home and I'm sure she's finished already; I haven't picked up knitting since I've been home so I'll be done in a couple of days. It's going to need to be blocked before I use it. And it'll probably also need to be washed to soften it because otherwise I'll never be able to let the scratchy yarn near my skin.