yarn along...stripe edition

Wednesdays keep sneaking up on me...time for yarn along again.

When I'm between projects, or just bored and seeking inspiration, I sift through my yarn bin. This accomplishes a few things: I remember what I have, get interested in starting something (or finishing something), and I'm deterred from buying more supplies.

This week I discovered (again) several extra and several partial skeins of Lion Fishermen's Wool. I usually end up with more than I need for sweaters, sometimes by a full skein, and that's what I have floating around in my bin. I'm mildly obsessed with using what's on hand this year - I've broken the habit of randomly wandering the aisles at the craft/yarn store and now I don't even feel like going there. Yay!

However, I do not have enough of any one color for a sweater. So I started a simple neck-down cardigan using Nature's Brown and Oatmeal for stripes. I have less of the Oatmeal color so I'm doing 12 rows of Nature's Brown to 6 rows of Oatmeal. It's on size 9 needles so it grows pretty quickly. These colors have a rather masculine feel in this stripe pattern, but I'm just looking for a utility sweater, to knock around the house in next winter.

As for reading, I finally picked up Outlander and read it through. It took me 3 tries to get past the first two chapters, but once I did I could not put it down! I will say this, it is too long and could have done with some serious editing to condense a few parts and move it along, but it was very good. I'm on to the second book of the series. I use an e-reader on my laptop and can then work the stockinette stitch of my sweater while reading. Win-win!

Oh, and the book in the photo is Scarf Style. I'm dying to knit Ene's Scarf and our entire large library system has only one copy of this book, so I grabbed it while it was in. I'm not sure I have enough of anything in my stash to knit it (I want to use fingering weight rather than laceweight for a more hearty shawl). I may break my streak and buy something, so badly do I want to make this pattern.