Connie's Varese Hoodie and tube scarves

My yarn, to knit Connie Chang Chinchio's "Varese Hoodie," for Elizabeth's birthday JUST ARRIVED (and I have to go to Boston for two days, darn, as I'm chomping at the bit to start this). The yarn, in ""Woodland," is Fleece Artist Woolie Silk 3 ply, not an easy yarn to come by, especially in some of its most earthy tones. But I found a seller in Oregon, who sent along a lovely small zipper pouch, as a bonus for spending (almost ) $100: nice.

While I rubbed my needles together waiting for the yarn, I made inordinate use of the Addi Express, an odd "machine," aka turn it clockwise for half an hour, ouch, that knits tubes of a modest circumference. Some years back, Hickory demonstrated for me by "knitting" a mohair scarf, which I gave to my mother, whose friends in her retirement community quite coveted. So, I asked Hickory to send the machine to me in Northampton, and to send a few balls of Filatura di Crosa Multicolor, a mohair/acrylic delicacy. She sent eight skeins. I worked them all into these scarves; then, like the obsessed princess who couldn't think of Rumpelstiltskin's name, made scarves for my grand daughters, scarves for their Lady Alexander dolls, blankets for their Disney fairies--what a way to bust stash!

I'm very ready to resume hand knitting. I've almost finished the February Lady Sweater, which I hardly like at all, though I'm wild for the Jamieson's Grouse Shetland Heather. I can only hope the finished sweater makes me think less often, than it does now, of shapeless old ladies milking the cows in Michigan while they crochet toilet paper cozies.