Forcing it

I bought some beautiful Malabrigo chunky yarn in "Pearl" with visions of big lovely cables in my head. I've knit about 6 inches of two cable scarves and am about to frog for the second time. I think this yarn is just so darn lovely that it wants nothing more than a k1p1 rib so it can just show off its fluffy semi-solid gloriousness.

I think I need to stop forcing cables and save them for a more boring yarn that needs a pick me up.

Merry Christmas

This Christmas knitting was a long time coming. I knitted the green Sean Stocking for my dear husband last Christmas, but I didn't finish my own until about a month ago. In the interim, he had become somewhat attached to the huge 44 inch long stocking and I had to convince him to let me felt them both. Clearly, they are much improved by the felting, and I'm quite pleased.

Still, I don't know if I'd actually recommend this pattern, since it took forever to knit up. There are much faster ways to make an equally satisfying stocking! That said, they made our Christmas this year!

Ambition (or lack of focus)

I have a few new projects in the mix at the moment, either because I'm super ambitious (or, more likely, because I'm feeling scatterbrained and can't focus on any one for very long).

They are:

1. A lacy cotton scarf, intended to use up a single skein of Araucania Ulmo from my stash.

2. Sean stocking no. 2. I finished my husband's stocking last year, and it took so long that I never made mine. Just picture this a lot, lot bigger.

3. Some sort of vest, made from Alpaca & Silk. There are multiple swatches going at the moment. I'm not loving any of them.

I'm also still plodding along on the fair isle pillow, but I have to alternate it with more mindless knitting!

Good as new (almost)

Here's a little update on the mouse-eaten dishcloth. I machine stitched around the chewed out areas to consolidate loose fibers, and then picked up stitches along the bottom of the hole. I had to knit up about 10 rows to complete the missing area. I grafted the top edge of the patch to the top edge of the hole, and then sewed the sides closed. It's not totally invisible, but not bad as a patch for a large irregular hole chewed by a mouse!

After

Before

Warning - mouse eats knitted dishcloth.

A few weeks ago, we stayed at my parents cabin for the weekend. As a thank you, I made my mom a towel and coordinating dishcloth. It took some convincing to get her to actually use them because she was afraid she'd mess them up. I swore they were durable and meant to be used.

Little did I know that the local mouse population had other ideas. Apparently a little guy chewed a hole through the dishcloth!

Luckily I'm heading home this Friday, so we'll see if we can do a little patch to salvage it.

Silly mice eating my knitting. This is a hazard I had not yet encountered!

Liberty Throw Pillow

A little fair isle experiment:



I've been wanting to try out the lovely fair isle Liberty blanket pattern by Mason Dixon Knitting, but its size seems a little ambitious. For starters, I'm making a set of throw pillows for our couch using only 2 repeats of the pattern, rather than 5.


Once I cut the steek, the fair isle panel will be about 18 x 18 or 20 x 20. This 12 x 18 pillow form is just for showing off the pattern in its present tubular state!

The window above the couch:


This elegant transom window sits above the couch. I think its patterns will play nicely with Liberty, which is why I picked this knit for our living room.

Tank top

This spring / summer I've finally taken to knitting some garments for myself (as opposed to for everyone else's babies / kids).

It's pretty rewarding making things for yourself. I just might get hooked on this.


Next up:
A ombre version of the Mason Dixon fair isle masterpiece, Liberty, in ivory and oatmeal colored Cascade 220. I'm starting with a throw pillow. If all goes well, I'll make the blanket too.