Apples and one not that ugly scarf

This weekend we've been raking apples. Lots of them. Normally we have had a good apple year (when we feel that we are drowning into apples) and bad apple years (when out of our 9 old apple trees we've been able to get apples for maybe 3 apple pies. and that's it.) on every other year. Last year we had a good apple year and this summer we were sort of hoping that we wouldn't be getting that many apples this year. (because that's just the way it normally goes) Well - no luck. This year seems to be the ultimate as far as apples are considered.
It looks pretty though as long as they are up in the tree.
However - as Newton already discovered - everything must come down eventually. And the raking part - that is not fun. Not anymore.
Oh - and to knitting :I've managed to finish my super ugly scarf. I joined the ends to form a loop (infinity scarf - as they are sometimes called).
Pattern: my own
Yarn: OnLine Linie 246 Move - 100g
Needles: 10mm

Guess what - I don't think it's that ugly anymore. I can totally wear it. It's not pretty-pretty, but it is nice and comfy and warm...and not half that ugly that it looked like when I had only knitted few inches of it.

Noro Yuzen vest

Here's one of the knits I've finished recently. A hooded vest made with Noro Yuzen (a wonderful blend of wool, silk & mohair) .
This was a very fast and simple knit. The biggest issue I had was probably with stripe sequencing. When I finished one ball of yarn it seemed to take ages to find the corresponding place of the next hank. (I hate it when some magazines have photos of "artful" self-striping yarns and then they have knitted the garments out of it with no thought at all. Stripes go this way and that way and the overall look is just a mess.... so I'm trying my hardest not to repeat that mistake in my own knitting.)
Pattern: Noro Yuzen Ladies waistcoat (Y848) , from Noro the world of nature , vol 26
Yarn: Noro Yuzen in colour #4 - approx 250g
Needles: 5mm

It is a very simple knit. Knitted all in one piece beginning from the hem and then decreasing on both edges steadily all the way until the top of the hood is grafted together. I love the colours in this yarn but I wish they would not change so rapidly from one colour to another. In the beginning it looked like I was knitting thin 2 row stripes... All in all a nice project anyways. Won't be using this to work but will most likely be living in it outside the office hours. Which is all good.

It's mushroom time again. We spent a couple of hours both on last Saturday and Sunday picking mushrooms. This is only a fraction of our "loot". Love walking in the forest - it really makes good for the soul. (and momentarily washes away the stress)

Spot the difference?

One of my current WIPs is a lace scarf from Victorian Knitting today and I'm making it in TYGs Compass. A lovely silk/lambswool blend in a yarn painted with gorgeous shades of purple, olive, moss, old-rose, rust / amber.
I had knitted the border for a while when my 5yr-old daughter asked if it is the same yarn again than the Noro Yuzen vest I was wearing. And really - I hadn't even noticed - but their colouring is very close. Almost identical.

(on top - TYG Compass, under - Noro Yuzen)
Pretty funny actually.

Serious Ugly

I rarely get fooled by the yarns ball appearance and can pretty much imagine what the yarn looks like when it is knitted up but this time... oh boy...

I partly blame the timing of this yarn purchase. Last Thursday I just had my tattoo done in tattoo shop and I was (most probably) full of adrenaline and endorphins... not the best time to enter the yarn shop where I very rarely visit. Plus that they had a sale.... (now that I think about it - it was a disaster waiting to happen) So there I was - pumped up with exhilaration and what not - and even when I'm at my normal state I find yarn sale quite hard to ignore. This time I did not even try. So I went through all those baskets of sale yarn and ended up buying these:
now - I'm pretty happy that I only bought that amount - at one point I could detect that maybe it was not a good idea to buy all the yarn from the shop - so I cut my purchase down to this. Which is still quite a lot - considering that I have a quite a sizeable yarn stash at home. (try somewhere around 60kg of yarn... )

But, this yarn is not all for me. I'm actually planning to make a couple of pairs of socks and a scarf or two out of it for xmas presents for all the lucky relatives. It is actually quite wise to buy yarn for xmas presents already in august. Right?

However - the yarn I planned to blog about is this.
So nice when it is all wound up in this cushy ball. I totally could see myself whipping a scarf out of it and how nice it would look with my leather jacket...

I began knitting and...
What the???? It looks like nothing I had envisioned in my head. Actually it looks damn ugly. I could hear Laura from Project Runway (season 3) in my head stating "there is some Serious Ugly here".
It looks like a roadkill or a pile of stale dog poo to me. Now how could I see it so wrong in my head? I must be mad to be buying novelty yarn in the first place - but this - it is just disgusting... I don't know what to do. Maybe I continue knitting and it will "grow on me"(???) Or maybe I just throw it to the rubbish. (after all it was dirty cheap as well - only 1EUR/ball)

What the h*** was I thinking???