We turned our heat on for exactly two days, where the high temperature barely managed to creep out of the 20s. Two whole days. We didn't have a single decent snowstorm--just a couple days of wet slush that melted within hours. My drawer full of handknits didn't see nearly as much use as it should have. Sure, I wore my sweaters a few times, and generally put a scarf on when out and about, but my lovely collections of hats, mittens and gloves was largely ignored.
I'm a little grumpy about the whole thing.
But I realize, it's time to move on. It's March 1. Clearly we're not going to get winter (am I tempting fate? I hope so!), so it's time to start thinking about spring! Spring and summer knitting aren't nearly as much fun as knitting for fall and winter, but there should be plenty of other activities at hand to keep me busy. We're planning for a busy season--we want to sell our condo and move to a house (in Maryland! How I've missed it!), hopefully in time for me to put in a summer vegetable garden. Then there's Maryland Sheep and Wool in May, work should take us to Costa Rica in June, Outer Banks in July and, before you know it, it's time for Rhinebeck again--I've got a room booked already!
And of course, I have some new design ideas brewing, including a possible mini-collection inspired by Peru.
But I'm getting ahead of myself with all these plans. So let's take a look at a couple of projects that are already completed.
Pattern: La Parisienne Beret
Yarn: Cascade 220 fingering and Yarn Pirate Superwash in plum gorgeous--used maybe half the Cascade and hardly put a dent in the Yarn Pirate
Needle: sz 3
Rav link
This was a quick and easy knit. The stitch pattern was easy to memorize and the whole thing was finished within a week. Were I to do it again, however, I think I would go down a needle size for a denser fabric, add a pattern repeat, and knit longer before doing the decreases, for a wider hat. And I may actually knit this one again, it would make a quick gift knit.
I tried a jogless stripe technique for this hat, but it just didn't work for me. It didn't do much to eliminate the jog, and created a line of slipped stitches that were tight and inflexible (which you can see in the photo). This is perhaps due to the fact that the first stitch of the round is a kfb, or maybe it's because the color changes were so frequent. Regardless, I'll definitely try the technique on another striped project in the future, but I stopped bothering with it about halfway through this one.
Pattern: Baby Sophisticate
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas multi cotton
Needle: sz 8
Size: 0-3 months
Rav link
This is the darling little sweater I knit for my niece. It reconfirmed that I hate knitting with cotton yarn. There's just no flow, even with yarn this soft, it just doesn't work for me. Particularly working on DPNs for the sleeves. Fortunately it's a small sweater. And the pattern itself is great--straightforward and unfussy. And most importantly, the collar is picked up and knit, not sewn on--I sewed a collar on another baby sweater recently (soon to be featured here, I hope), and it was miserable. I don't sew things. Boo on sewing.
Also, check out these buttons:
Wee sheep! I picked them up at least a year ago somewhere or other--Etsy, perhaps?--and finally put them to good use. I even have four left for another baby sweater, and since my friends' never-ending cycle of having children is, uh, never-ending, I'm sure I'll be knitting another one in no time.
Work continues on the Wildflower Cardigan. If I don't finish it soon, I'm not going to have a chance to actually wear it until October--today's high is 66!
No comments :
Post a Comment