Kusha Kusha

The Kusha Kusha scarf is one of those immensly popular pattern (there are currently 643 projects on ravelry alone) that is extremely simple to knit up and has a quick, interesting result. It is worked from a stainless steel/silk yarn (if you can call something that is the thickness of human hair yarn, that is) together with a soft wool lace yarn, and, once finished knitting, gently fulled (or felted, what ever you prefer to call it)

The process of fulling gives, a) a sturdy body to the whole project, b) takes care that the whole think lays flat (it's knit in stocking stitch, which normally leads to curling on the edges), c) adds warms to the whole thing and, finally, d) softens the whole thing considerably.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to wear it to, but it's super light and rather pretty.

I might dye it though, as the grey is a bit on the boring side. I aimed for elegant, but it didn't turn quite out that way.

With the Iceland afghan out of the way, I've started a new big, long term project. The idea is to finally use up my pile of left over sock yarn. Having discovered recently that I like to crochet once in a while, I started a patchwork blanket. The pattern is available for free from drops and once you have the five row pattern down, it's super simple.

I've already made about 30 of those patches and they work up really fast. It is fantastically portable (a small ball of yarn, a crochet hook, that's all). Going through my bag with left over yarn, I've noticed I've got a lot of reds - I'm not so sure I want to go that way, but for now I've got still enough other colors.