Umaro

Anyone who follows this blog knows how much I love Brooklyn Tweed patterns.  By last count, I've made eight of them (some more than once) including most of his blanket designs.

A year or two ago, I decided to make this blanket as a gift for someone special.  I bought the yarn and left it to sit in my closet until the right moment came along.  About a month ago, I was struck with a case of finishitis and decided to finish a knitted bag that's been waiting for handles and lining.  While I was searching my closet for the bag handles, I ran across this yarn, along with some yarn that I'd set aside for a cabled pullover.  I haven't found the handles, but I have cast on for two more projects.  I guess sometimes finishitis leads to startitis, too.

While making good progress on the cabled sweater and a couple of pairs of socks, I still managed to make this bulky blanket in a little less than a month.  I used elann's Highland Bulky wool to knit it, with huuuuge needles (10.0 mm, aka US 15.)  The single-ply wool yarn isn't my favourite to knit with, since it's a bit splitty, but it did knit up nicely.  The end result is a warm bulky blanket, albeit a bit fuzzy and prone to picking up lint.  If I did this blanket again (and let's face it, that's not unlikely) I wouldn't use a wool single again, but probably do something with multiple plies, and machine-washable, since I think that would make it more practical.

Rosebud

No longer just a clever reference to Citizen Kane, Rosebud is also a lovely wooly hat designed by Jared Flood for his Fall 2011 collection. (Making that link just reminded me how many other lovely pieces were in that collection. As if I didn't have enough projects queued.)


I knit this hat in a day, back in November. I don't have any of Jared's lovely Shelter yarn, so I used some wool/mohair Peace Fleece I had buried in the stash. This was a skein of Kamchatka Sea Moss, which is a really nice spearminty green with flecks of white and a brighter lime green. This colourway is so beautiful in the sun, and never ceases to make me smile. As for the style, I love it - the cable isn't my favourite for some reason, but it really works, especially with the slouchy garter-stitch body.

I've been wearing this hat pretty much all winter long, and it has kept me warm and smiling, although in recent days I made a couple of new hats, so I have a bit more selection, now.

Another Adorable Baby Blanket

As I mentioned a week and a half ago, I recently committed myself to making a couple of baby blankets. Initially I was going to make two of the same blanket (the shale lace blanket I showed off last week) but my mom and sister were so enamored of Jared Flood's Tweed Baby Blanket (ravelry) that I decided to make one of each, instead. In retrospect, I'm glad I did. While I love the first one, I was a bit tired of doing the same thing over and over by the end of it, and making a second blanket the same might have put me over the edge.

The classic Shetland construction of this one is perfect for cleansing the palate: first you knit a big garter stitch square (from one corner to the opposite corner) which is so easy and meditative that it's heavenly. Then you pick up stitches along the four sides and do some lace. It just so happens that this lace changes colours every four rows, which definitely inspired me to keep going and do a full repeat (or two or three) every day.


Once again, the acrylic means that I can't block it quite the way I'd like to (sorry Jared) but it still looks great. The only thing I might change is the attached i-cord edging. I upsized one needle size to do it, but it still seems a little bit tight. Perhaps going up another size would have helped, or doing some more unattached rows of i-cord at the right places to follow the curves of the lace.

Once it was off the needles, I wasted no time in getting back to the springy fingerless mittens I've been hankering for. They are nearly done, so I'll show you those, soon.

Turn a Square hat

The other day, one of my coworkers asked me for a hat, and as he's one of my favourite people, I couldn't deny him such a simple gift. But what hat to make? I went through Brooklyntweed's patterns, since I have successfully gifted more than one of his designs to important men in my life, in the past. One of his newer designs is ridiculously simple but beautiful (oh, and free): Turn a Square.


So I made my way to the LYS yesterday and picked up some yarn. Choosing colours was not an easy task, for this one. It needed to be manly, and suit the recipient, but still be lovely and striking to behold. The Noro Silk Garden was the easy part: only two colourways there were the least bit manly, and one of those was just neutral browns. The blue/black/lime colourway clearly won out, there (even though, alas, the lime never quite made it into the hat.) Choosing the Cascade 220 was harder: do I go with a grey or a blue or a green or something more contrasting? I considered and rejected many before finally choosing this one, called Sparrow Heather -- it's a lovely shade of greyish greenish brown. I have never liked how it looked online, but seeing it in my hand was different. And the more I knit with it, the more I am convinced that the colour is just so delicious that I need something more: like a warm and cozy cabley cardigan.

A Good Day

Another project that never quite made it to the sidebar: a Habitat hat from brooklyn tweed (ravelry) that I made for my Dad. A while ago he mentioned offhandedly that he might need a toque, and I had a bit of time on my hands. Once I finished my Queen of Cups socks, I didn't have anything else ready to go, since I am waiting (impatiently) for an assortment of yarn from Blue Moon Fiber Arts to arrive. It only took a couple of days to knit this up, and the cables were lots of fun. It also reminded me that I've been toying with the idea of designing and knitting an aran afghan.

While I wait for my yarny ship to come in, I have plenty of other things to occupy my time: my loom is dressed and ready to weave my scarf, I started cutting out fabric for a wall quilt I have planned, and oh yeah, all those other in-progress projects laying around here... Today, however, I took a day off and played hooky with my mom. It was a good day.