It's Swap Time Again! July's "Alice" Swap!

I'm a little late in posting this, but I thought I'd show off the items I sent off in my July Alice in Wonderland themed swap, without worrying that I'd spoil it for the recipient!

This Month's theme was "Alice" herself, and here are the photos of the package I mailed:

The gloves were Churchmouse  Designs Welted Fingerless Gloves, knit in a light "Alice" blue dk weight yarn with size 5 and 6 DPNs.  I altered the pattern just a bit to suit the fact that the original pattern had 5 welts for buttons, and as I was using card suit buttons (clever, no???LOL) I only had 4....so, 4 welts it was!

The second picture shows a bag I made with an Alice color work motif, containing size 2 DPNs and stitch markers, since my swap partner had said on her profile page she was interested in making socks.  There was also a few Alice notepads, pens, lip gloss, stickers and post-it notes.

The theme for next month is "The Deck Of Cards", and I've already got it started!  Pics to come!

M-m-m-MY PAGONA!!!!!!!

Sing that to the tune of "My Sharona" and you'll have what I lived through at the yarn shop for a good month and a half straight!

Backing up a bit, I feel it necessary to say that almost everyone who worked at/visited the yarn shop where I work became enamored, mesmerized and hypnotized by Stephen West.  Who could blame them???  Not only does this man create incredibly beautiful and whimsical knitting patterns, but he's cute as a button as well!

Good God, flippin' beautiful.

Anyways, Stephen's pattern for his "Pagona" shawlette, from West knits book 1 became the popular knit about town.

Considering about 1/2 the clientele and 1/2 off the staff were making this project at any given time the word "Pagona" came up quite often.  Then, the singing began.  One of my favorite clients in the shop began singing "m-m-m-MY PAGONA" (again, sung to the tune of "My Sharona") every time the name came up, and as I mentioned before, due to the pattern's popularity and visibility was about every 2.2 minutes.  Slowly this became nearly Pavlovian, with the entire shop bursting into song, again, every 2.2 minutes.

Now that every one has finished knitting this pattern I have only just recently stopped having nightmares where the song is on a continuous loop in my ears.

So, I'll post the pictures of M-M-M-MY PAGONA, ahem, I mean my completed Pagona shawl.....

The pattern calls for sock weight yarn, and I was thrilled because I still had some left over Ella Rae Lace variegated purple and black that I LOVED!  The pattern also stated that it should be knit on size six circular needles.  When I knit my gauge swatch I decided that it would just be too open a stitch for me, so I downsized my needles to a size 4.  Sadly, this increased my need for more yardage.  Fortunately I was able to find another skein  in my colorway and dye lot at the shop, and thank goodness:  My altered pattern went from requiring 380 yards to nearly 530 to reach the same 14" length before creating the garter stitch border!

I LOVE this pattern due to its versatility and simple appearance.  And its ability for making people sing.