The Price of Gold ...

hit $1100/ounce today -- it happens like this during recessionary times. Enough econ 101 from me.

Even though I love my gold jewelry dearly, and keep it close for moments like this (thinking that IF I have to, I'll sell it to pay the rent), I thought that a woolen piece of gold might be a wonderful thing to wear - thought it might be a multiple of eight, so I could call it "pieces of eight" - the pattern is Diamond Links,

but I decided to make this one out of gold yarn - found what I consider to be a really good reasonable facsimile of the precious metal, in the Woodlawn colorway, and commenced working on this really fun pattern.

When I started the scarf in April, gold was hovering around $900/ounce - like gold, my yarn is a very precious commodity!

Necessity IS the Mother!

OK ... finally something worth blogging about -

I'm not usually at a loss for words, but lately I've been in quiet mode - today this silence may very well be broken by something I have been thinking about and wanting for quite some time - it's been going in and out of my brain, and the light bulb went on this afternoon!

For the longest time, I've been trying desperately to find the perfect row counter to use on circs; Wendy's row counter gave me the idea, but I thought that a better mousetrap might be possible. Susan Bates had the right idea,

but I prefer the turning mechanism of the Clover -

so, instead of writing the Clover folks imploring them to produce one, I decided to cobble one together myself.

So, I visited one of my favorite places for inspiration, the hair products section of my local drugstore - all the little clips, bobby pins, hair bands and such tend to speak to me in strange ways. And sure enough, something piped up - I brought a pack of them home, took out my little Clover row counter and my dentist's tool from Patternworks (the only place I have ever been able to find it -- have stocked up on them as well); pushed it through the row counter, hooked it into the hair band, pulled the band through - now I had two loops: one to go on the needle, the other needed to be anchored with something - aha - another Clover product, a little coil to use for holding dpns.

Et voila: my perfect row counter for circs!

Yes, my friends -- if you like, you may create your own, unless you're happy with the other one - we all have our own little crazinesses, and this is mine - at least for today, I'm a happy inventor (as well as a relaxed and pleased knitter)!

What, you ask, is that little row counter sitting on? Right now, another love: a cowl - out of my latest passion: Great Northern Yarns' 70% mink/30% cashmere DK weight yarn in Sunset Red.

Craig is amazing, not only for his brilliance in combining the two luxurious fibers, but also for his incredible service; here on the upper west side of Manhattan, we have a Chinese food delivery place (one of many) that is positively psychic - the minute I hang up the phone from making an order, the doorbell rings and the food arrives (scary, I know...) that's how fast the yarn showed -- seriously!!

... and I have never worked with a yarn of this softness -- I thank Mary for blogging about it, and of course Anne was one of the first to rave - but I guess I didn't pay much attention to it - but, thank you BOTH for turning me on to Craig - I think I'm going to be spending a lot of my hard earned recession dollars!