One of my favorite blogs.

Knotty Generation is Pam Gillette's blog. I no longer recall exactly how I came across it, but I love it. This woman is so very talented, and her blog suits the crochet snob in me as well. Why? Quite simply, because when I scroll down her blog, each and every project I see is crocheted. How can you not love that?

She's also got great hair, but that has nothing to do with anything.

Out of all the projects on her blog right now, I think this capelet is my favorite. Just because it looks so great with that skirt. Her suede pieces are nothing to be sneezed at either. She's also working on a book, and I do hope it gets published because I'll show up at the bookstore just as soon as they open on the day it hits the shelves, something I haven't done since Laurell K Hamilton's Narcissus in Chains came out (and what a deep, deep disappointment that was!). I am confident there will be no werewolf sex in Ms Gillette's book, LOL.

What prompts this entry, in part, is that Ms Gillette has left a couple of comments in my blog. It is such a pleasure to find that someone whose work I admire so much also reads my blog. I mean really, how cool is that? This isn't really an attempt to suck up, though. Just a plug for someone whose work I truly enjoy, for anyone who finds my blog through whatever means and has somehow managed to miss hers.

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I've frogged the suit I was trying to design in favor of one of my other ideas: a baby layette gift basket. Not a normal crocheted layette of afghan, sweater, hat, & booties, but a more practical one similar to the layette gift sets you buy in stores. I've been kicking around this idea since I bought a gift set for Esther at the NEX a while back. It was very nearly a whole little wardrobe--one pair of pants, two pairs of shorts, and three shirts. Very useful. So for mine I am thinking: blanket, two diaper covers, one pair of pants, two shirts, two sweaters, two hats, & two pairs of sockies/booties. Now, the real deal will be marketing it, since with all the work that goes into it, it will have to be priced higher than even my usual stuff. But it's just one of those things I feel compelled to do. I know it will turn out well. I'm going to work on writing patterns for most if not all of what I make, too.

Right now I'm working on the blanket. It will be a cable stitch. The stitch is modeled off one in Donna Kooler's Encyclopedia of Crochet, one of the stitches for the Philosopher's Coat. I have dickered with it quite a bit, though, retaining only one small part of the stitch there. Certain aspects of it made it well nigh impossible for me to tell where to put my stitches for the row after the cable row, and so I had to really re-work it. It's OK, though, because I'm no longer feeling compelled to use SC. I was getting twitchy at the idea of crocheting a baby blanket, lengthwise, in single crochet. I'm now using HDC, which is the tallest stitch I can pair with an I hook (and my beloved Simply Soft) without leaving apparent holes.

I'm using the dark country blue yarn to make the blanket. Oh, how I love this yarn! My favorite color is navy blue (which my hubby, a sailor, did not believe at first), and this is so dark a blue it is almost black. I love it.