adding to the Christmas pile

It was a productive weekend. I'm still not sure where the time is going, but I did come out of it on Sunday night with some sense of accomplishment!
My sister-in-law's chenille scarf. This is a rayon chenille that I bought at a machine knitting show earlier in the year. It was this huge cone of "so-white-it's blinding" rayon chenille for $10. I'd heard horror stories of working with chenille, so I figured for $10 if it was brutal, there was little to be lost. I wound this into different hanks of different lengths to attempt dying the rayon. Koolaid was out, as it didn't take to the rayon, and since I didn't have any acid dyes hanging around, I channeled my tie-dying days of the seventies, and broke out the rit dyes. I used a brown and a grey - dipped half a hank into the brown, then the other half took a quick dive into the grey.

Once it all was over and done with, I had this pewter and bronze-y looking hank of chenille drip drying on my clothesline. Once it dried, I was pretty happy with it.

Then came the actual knitting of the chenille - I was originally thinking of an evening type wrap - open and lacy, very drapey. Not a good idea with chenille. Tossed out the 9mm needles. Started again with 4.5mm, and decided on a scarf. Still wanted a lacy type, but I knew it had to be kind of tight. Enter feather and fan. I think it turned out pretty good.

The rayon really shines, and the metal like colours work well with this sheen. I surprisingly experienced none of the "worming" so prevalent with chenille yarns. Maybe I got lucky, maybe this particular chenille (rayon) doesn't worm. Maybe I just hit on the right needle size, right pattern combo. All I can say is, I'm happy with it. I still have a ton of the pewter and bronze, plus another huge ball of a blue/green dye job, and a smaller one of solid pewter. CatBookMom, if you want to try some, let me know!
I also started and finished another scarf - this time on the machine:

Black bamboo yarn - knitted diagonally and fringed. Start to finish, about 2 hours total. (It actually took closer to 5 hours, but I was watching curling, and helping Son with some computer stuff as well)

The colour here is off - it is really black - deep, ebony black, that shines.
This stuff is nice! Very drapey, silky feeling, and a dream to run through the machine. The diagonal stitch helped combat any stockinette curling, but a quick steam block with the iron really flattened it out without taking away the sheen and drapiness. However, I'm not sure I would want to hand knit the bamboo - can we say splitty?? Just moving it from needle to needle on the machine was frustrating due to the splittiness; I can't imagine how annoying it would be to handknit. But... a beautiful hand and drape, to be sure.
Oh yeah, I'm also the world's nicest wife. I even bought a gift for my husband to give me. You know, so he doesn't have to spend as much time shopping. I know how he hates shopping so this is really doing him a favour. Really it is! And I haven't even looked at it. Much.