Harvest Cardigan: Complete!

I finished the Harvest Cardigan yesterday.  The knitting was all done a month ago, but the buttonholes needed some reinforcing and I just couldn't bring myself to pull out my crochet hook and weave in all the darn ends.  But I actually went to Sunday afternoon knitting yesterday and made myself do it.  Now all the buttonholes have a lovely chain stitch edging around them, and all the ends are woven into the back.

I'll attempt to do more close-ups another time. It's blocking right now. I'm probably going to have to steam-block the button band and buttonhole band to reduce curling.

Oh! And I got a new (to me) washing machine. It has a just-plain-spin cycle. THRILLED. This baby will take far less time to block than it would have if it had to air-dry completely on its own. All my sweaters from now on will take less time to block/dry.

Also, I'm about to be gone for a week of travel/conference knitting. I'm thinking about cranking out a ton of socks. Stay tuned.

Delayed Gratification

Look, Ma!  Two sleeves!

The saga of the Minimalist Cardigan ended happily.  Thanks to a wonderful knitter I found on Ravelry, I was able to purchase another skein of yarn and the dye lot was a good match for what I already had.  I knit up the sleeve, sewed everything back up (in the process of making sure things matched, I discovered that I'd sewn on Sleeve A inside-out, so I had to take it off and do it again.  Sigh.)

I haven't bothered to block it yet, but that hasn't stopped me from wearing it.  Much.  I really do need to block it, though.  I just... well, I moved to Connecticut about two weeks ago, and that takes some time and energy, y'know?  And then I had some computer issues and couldn't update, but that got fixed.

Here are a couple of action shots before a meeting at church just before I left.  I probably shouldn't have worn this sweater with this dress, but I was so excited about wearing each item that I didn't really care if they actually went together.  It turns out they don't, but I didn't know it until I saw these photos.  Oh well, it is what it is.


Oh, and I haven't left-left my church, I'm on sabbatical.  It's wonderful so far.  I do miss home and think about my friends and church people quite often, but it's been nice to live with Husband and know it's for three whole months rather than just a week or two. (Being married to a grad student is hard.)  So far I've gotten my hair dyed, sat through a blizzard and watched lots of people drive like idiots in the snow, spent a couple of days in New York City (watched some Fashion Week nonsense and a dress rehearsal of Parsifal at the Met; both were great), and seen a lot of theater.

And yeah, I've done a bit of knitting, too.  Watch for updates.

More from the Archives

Hey look!  Baby booties!

(Don't get any ideas, they're not for any current or pending babies).

Speaking of Secret Santees, these are baby booties I knit for a college alumni Santee a couple of years ago.  She was pregnant at the time, and someone I actually knew (not always the case in this particular exchange), so I did something specialish for her.  Unfortunately, I have no memory of what yarn I used.  Frog Tree Alpaca, maybe?  Not fuzzy enough, I think.

I don't remember what pattern I used, either.  But they're supercute, and I think I enjoyed the pattern at the time.  They're seamless, and there was some cool and magical cast-on that started from the middle of the sole.  

I have no idea if the Santee actually used them.  But that wasn't really the point, so I'm okay with not knowing.

Finishitis-Slash-Stashbusting

That whole Finishitis thing was for real, by the way.  I mean, I still haven't done anything more about Henry, but one of these days I will.

Shortly after that Finishits post, I realized that Christmas was coming.  And I wasn't doing anything terribly ambitious in terms of knitting gifts for people, but I thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of the energy I was feeling.  And although I had acquired That Amazing Stash back in February, I hadn't used much of it -- or even fully integrated it in to my own stash yet.  How silly of me!

So one Monday afternoon when the light was good (difficult in Vermont in the winter), I went shopping in my own piles of yarn.  And boy did I find a ton of leftovers.  Time to make some stripey hats!

Although this picture has two hats and the very beginning of a third, I've completed four so far.  The one not pictured here was for my Secret Santee, and I mailed it off to her before I remembered to get a photo.  So I'm hoping she takes a picture and sends it to me, if she actually got the package.  I still haven't gotten confirmation from her that she received it.  (Sigh.) (That one was leftover blue worsteds -- some Malabrigo and some Rio de la Plata, maybe?  Two single-plys.  I like single-ply yarns.)

The purple hat went to a two year old girl as a Hannukah gift.  Who besides a two-year-old girl could love that purple (Lamb's Pride Worsted) and crazy green/pink/yellow/purple/with-gold-sparkles (Berocco Oasis) combo?  Plus, that same night she happened to get an awesome ice skater costume for her dress-up box, and the hat matched perfectly!  She loved the hat and wore it all night, even after taking off the costume.

The gray one is leftovers from Husband's sweater and some unknown sparkly/fuzzy yarn from The Stash.  I gave it to my friend Angela, who says she loves it (but I haven't seen hear wearing it yet).

The yellow one hasn't been given away yet.  I think the plain yellow is leftover Malabrigo, and I know the variegated yellow/white/orange is leftover from this hideous sweater I never seamed (but maybe I will one of these days, given the finishitis).  I've worn it a couple of times, and it's very effective as a hat. I will figure out who should have it, and I will give it to them -- but meanwhile, it'll sit around my house being pretty.

That's all I've done for now, but I'd imagine there will be more.
All the hats are made with the same pattern: Turn-a-Square.  Modified, of course.  No tubular cast-on.  And usually a little longer so that it's slouchy instead of skullcappy.

More Fireside Ogling: Buttons!

My colleague from Los Angeles says that photographs taken from above have a slimming effect.  I'm not sure it shows off the knitting to best effect -- and what's more important? -- but maybe it provides an interesting perspective.  I would like to note that standing by a window on a sunny day after it's snowed means there's a lot of light and an English Rose like me can look realllllly washed-out.  It's winter in Vermont, and I guess I'm going to pretend that I have amazing porcelain skin.

Okay, moment of vanity over.

That last post about Fireside didn't have any pictures of the buttons.  Here they are -- leaves!  I'm thinking about putting one more button on and making a hidden i-cord for a buttonhole, because my instinct when I put on this sweater is to button it up higher so it feels cozier.  Since I actually bought seven buttons (for five buttonholes--whoops), I may add a completely useless button above the one I'm thinking of adding for increased coziness, just as a fun design detail and so I don't lose that extra button.

Thoughts?

Fireside Details

It occurs to me that the only picture of the finished(ish) Fireside Sweater that I've put on here was from relatively far away.  Here's a closer picture, although it's from before I put on the buttons.

And I neglected to post pictures of the fabulous back cables that I totally made up all by myself.  So here you go.














Here's a close-up of the upper back cable and the fabulous Kitchenered-cable neck.

Fiddlehead Mittens Are Done!

Sooooo pretty.  And warm!  Seriously, these are the warmest mittens ever.  If you want warm hands, you want these mittens.  They’re essentially three layers of yarn.  And they’re alpaca.  And they’re matting together quite nicely and becoming basically windproof.  My hands have never been this warm.

Plus, I enjoyed knitting these so much, I immediately cast on for another pair.  And I want to make a matching hat, too.

It’s love, I tell you.  True love.

Finished Fireside

So here it is, the Fireside Cardigan.  Done!  I’m thrilled with the end result.  It did grow a bit when I blocked it – the arms needed some coaxing not to be eleventy-zillion feet long when I put it on after it had dried – but the fit is still quite good in spite of the growth.  I’ve also lost some weight since I started the knitting back in January.  If I’d known I was going to do that, I’d maybe have knit the small instead of the medium.  But still.  I’m quite pleased with it.  I looooove the color, and I swear this one is even better than the original model that Cameron Diaz wore in The Holiday.  (Many thanks to Portcat for finding a still I could use!)

I wasn’t sure I would like the double-breasted look on me, but it turns out I love the cozy wrappy-ness of this sweater (would it be crazy to knit a cable-y belt??).  My one regret is that I only made five buttonholes.  I should have done seven so I could close it higher up the neck.  Maybe I’ll add a few loops instead.

Mods:

It must be said that I modified the pattern quite heavily.

• First, I knit the body in one piece instead of in three.
• Then, I added cables on the sides where the side-seams would have been.  I just wasn’t interested in looking at that much reverse stockinette.
• In the interest of avoiding giant panels of reverse stockinette, I also added cables in the center back, at both the bottom and the top.  So much prettier.
• I knit a sort of fake i-cord thingy on the front edges – a slip-stitch selvedge, three stitches wide.  I think.
• The above changes mean that I didn’t use the original stitch count the pattern wanted.  But I think I ended up with the required number of stitches after I split for the arm holes.
• I may or may not have followed the pattern’s waist shaping instructions.  But, y’know, I made it to fit my body, not the author’s.
• Same sleeve modification that everyone else did, so I didn’t get a too-short sleeve cap.
• I kitchenered the shoulder seams and neck, rather than do the 3-needle bind-off.  Less bulky, more elegant.  (Pic to the right, above)
• There was something else with the sleeves – I don’t remember what the pattern said to do, but I held twelve underarm stitches on the sleeves (and twelve on the body) and kitchenered them together.  Turns out, I kind of like kitchenering.  And I’m pretty good at it now!
• I did five buttonholes, including one at the bottom.  Seriously, what is up with making sweaters that don’t close at the bottom?  I don’t always button the bottom button on my sweaters, but I want the option.  Anyway, my sweater has a button at the bottom – and like I said, I wish I’d added a couple more buttonholes higher up the chest so I could have seven buttons instead of five.
• Oh, the rope cables that are supposed to stop cabling at the sleeves?  I kept cabling them, and left a selvedge stitch for seaming.  Also I kept the front rope cables (the ones that are supposed to disappear) going longer than the pattern says.  Why decrease on the cable itself when you can decrease around the cable instead?

I…think that’s it for mods.

I’m going to go be cozy in my new sweater now.  I think that might involve hot chocolate.

(This photo was taken pre-blocking, and held closed with yarn ties through the buttonholes.  This is the basement of Husband's school.  The outside of the building does not look institutional or basementy at all.  But...yeah, the basement sure does.)

From the Archives, sort of

About a year ago, I made a lovely yellow Aran sweater for my friend Meowkat's imminently-arriving baby.  She did send me pictures of the sweater in action (better than that -- she brought him over to my house wearing the sweater once!) but I never got around to posting them.  Consider that an oversight, and consider it corrected.

The sleeves are crazy-long and she has them rolled up so they're more manageable.  But the body of the sweater fit him!

These pictures are actually from April or May.  He probably doesn't fit the sweater anymore.  Well, maybe the sleeves, but not the rest of it.

Olympic catch-up

So I did finish Husband's sweater for the Ravellenic Games.  The knitting part -- I still haven't done the zipper.  I have a sewing machine but have never even plugged it in, because that involves moving a giant bookshelf full of books... it's a process.  And I'm decidedly a process knitter, but maybe not so much a process zipper-sewer.

Anyway, I finished the sweater.  Even without a zipper, it looks pretty rad.  The sleeves are the right length and everything--which is good, because I reknit them about four times.

Without the zipper, the front pieces of the cardigan roll under themselves.  It actually does close properly, I promise.

I finished it and even managed to take the picture by all the proper deadlines for the Ravellenics.  I just didn't post them in the proper forum (fora--what's up with having to post in, like, three million places in order to get credit??) so it didn't actually help my team.  Sorry team.  But I did finish the sweater!  Hooray!  That's really all I was hoping for in this experience, anyway.



The collar lining is a bit of Manos, I think.  The main yarn is Cascade Rustic.  I did enjoy knitting with it.  But given all that was involved in knitting this particular sweater, I may not ever use Rustic again.  Or maybe I need to knit something else to redeem it.  Sigh.  As it is, I don't have this one hanging over my head anymore.

And given that Husband has now decided he doesn't really want it after all, I may or may not ever get around to moving the bookshelf so I can plug in the sewing machine so I can make sure it works and practice on non-knitwear stuff before I attempt sewing in the zipper.  We'll have to see.

Conversion? Or Experimentation?

Soooooo I made another pair of socks.

I wasn't really planning to do it -- I was feeling inspired to knit, and really wanted to work on my Fireside sweater, but we were having a heatwave.  And I actually tried to knit it for a while while it was 90-something (32+ for you Celsius-dwellers) in my living room, but I just couldn't handle the weight and the wool on my lap.  It just wasn't working for me.  I needed to make something lighter.  Something smaller.  Something... more sock-like.

Out came my Knitted Socks from Around the World, the only patterns that have ever succeeded in getting me interested in making socks.  I picked the Herringbone Sock pattern.  A classic.  The next morning (when the light was good) I picked yarn from the stash.  The green is Happy Feet, the blue is Malabrigo Sock.  I dug out my size 2 needles, only to discover that one was broken and one was missing -- sooo I had to make an emergency dash to Kaleidoscope that afternoon.  But then I was ready.  Ball wound, stitches cast-on... and the pair took me a whole five days to knit.  I was like a machine.  A sock-knitting machine.

They're really warm and comfy.  Maybe the weather will get cold again and I can wear them someday.

Seriously, y'all, I used to hate making socks.  I think it's the colorwork that's changed my mind.  Something's changed, anyway.  I might have to start using phrases like "it was so fun to make these!" or "I might like knitting socks after all!"

We'll see.  It might just be a temporary thing.  But it might be the real deal.

LIZARD RIDGE IS DONE!

It's done, I tell you!

Well, okay, I need to weave in the ends.  Sometime.  I don't really care about that so much.  The knitting is finished, the seaming is finished, the border is finished.  Who really cares about the finishing?  Even working at a very casual pace, I spent a good eleven months working on the Lizard Ridge.  Weaving in the ends is hardly a concern.

It's sooooo warm on my lap.  I'm so happy I knit it.

And since I scored a goodly amount of Kureyon in that giant stash score, I may make another one sometime.  Not for a little while, but y'know.  Sometime.



What do you think of the light gray border?  It was a controversial choice, I know...

Sock It to Me!

I forgot to tell you: I had to get a Kindle because of that continuing education thing I went to in Florida last month.  One of the books was out of print but available as an e-book, so the people running the program offered to reimburse us if we needed to buy a Kindle.

What do you do when you get a Kindle?  Well, you should probably get some kind of case for it, because it's an expensive-but-breakable item that's a pain in the neck to replace.

Or, if you're me, you knit it a sock.



Kindle Sock Pattern:
Yarn -- leftover Fuzzy Bunny worsted weight two-ply (leftover from this gorgeous shawl)
Needles -- size 6, as that's all I had with me at the time.
CO 40 sts -- I did not join in the round, but only because I didn't have the right needle with me.
Row 1: k1fb, k to last st, k1fb
Row 2 and following: knit in stockinette.  It's that simple!
Cast off when you've knit about an inch longer than the Kindle itself.  Fold in half and seam together side and bottom (I did mattress stitch for the side, and just a whip stitch on the bottom).
Put your Kindle in there and don't worry about it getting scratched or smooshed in your purse!  Kindle Sock won't protect your expensive-but-breakable item from getting damaged if you step on it, though, so ... well, just don't do that.  Refrain from putting your Kindle on the floor or whatever.

Action Shot

This is KnittingQueen's baby. Out for a walk on a fine October day (okay, so I've been sitting on this photo for a while), wrapped in the blanket I knit for her. Is she adorable, or what?

More babies on the way!

I'm at that stage in life where freakin' everyone I know is having a baby. Everyone. It's a baby-splosion up in here. Most recently, Meowkat has been the lucky mom-to-be. I offered to throw the Burlington-area knitters shower way back in the summer when I didn't know that this fall was going to be craaaaazy-busy, and we finally made it happen at the beginning of November.

The fall has been so busy, though, that I didn't quite have my gift for her finished for the shower. Eh, it happens. At some point, I just realized that I could either throw a baby shower or finish the baby sweater I was knitting her, but not both. So I threw the shower and gave her an unfinished sweater (which I immediately took back so I could finish it, of course). Well now it's done! I did the final seam at a conference in Boston the week after the shower. I think I was also knitting this sweater in Cleveland. And in New Haven, CT. So it's a well-traveled baby sweater, and there's not even a baby yet! He's due this week.

I figure as long as I got the sweater done before he's born, I'm still okay.

I'd been having a hankering to knit an aran sweater as fall came upon us and the pull toward cozy knits grew strong. I even went out and bought some beautiful and perfect yarn for just such a sweater. But seeing as how I'm still plugging away on Husband's monotonous stockinette sweater and it's taking me FOREVER (I've started the sleeves four times now! Argh!), and I've also got multiple almost-but-not-quite finished sweaters for myself, I just didn't feel right starting yet another sweater for myself yet. But given the baby-splosion...

I promptly went out and bought some gorgeous Malabrigo Rios (okay, okay, I was checking out The Knitting Studio's new location and gave in to temptation), and flipped through StrungUp's pattern library (mine doesn't have much baby stuff) until I found the Heirloom Aran Sweater (Rav link). Perfect! I cast on pretty much right away, and knit whenever I had a chance. It made for good travel-knitting on my Cleveland trip, but all my other trips this fall have been driving trips, so I didn't get as much done as I'd have liked.

A couple of nights before the shower, this is where I was, progress-wise:

The sleeves on this sweater are loooooong. Too long. But most baby sweater patterns have sleeves that are too short, so whatever. It just took a while to knit the sleeves. But it's a baby sweater, so that's totally relative.

Anyway, I plugged away and had the sleeves done for the shower, and finished the neckband during the shower itself. I got to the seams eventually and finished them during a conference-slash-visit with my sister in Boston.

And here's the finished product!

See, the sleeves were so long that I ended up folding up the cuffs. If I knit this sweater again, and I may very well some day, despite other Ravellers' complaints that it's a poorly-written pattern (I didn't think it was great, but it wasn't so bad I would bother to complain about it), I will shorten the sleeves about 3 inches.

Now I just have to find a time to get it to Meowkat, who's supposed to be having this baby...today. So, um. Yeah.

I cannot wait to see this on Baby Whatshisname someday. He'll be adorable! Congratulations, Meowkat and Meow-husband.




The obligatory Jared Flood-inspired artsy knitting photo. Although I'm not so sure my light is as nice as his.



Also, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It's my favorite day of the year. I'm going to go hang out with the Most Awesome Nephew in the World now.

Now for Something Completely Different

I had to frog the sleeves of Husband's sweater. They fit me, but not him, and that's not so useful. I was frustrated, so I took a break from the sweater.

I was visiting Nido a couple of weeks ago, and Fiona asked my opinion about a pattern she'd picked for a sample. The next day, she called me and said that the woman who was supposed to knit the sample had backed out -- would I be interested in knitting it? Sure!

The pattern is Ysolda Teague's Emily Capelet. The yarn is Tidal Yarns DKish weight. It's kind of a light DK. I got gauge with a size 7 needle. I really enjoyed knitting with this yarn -- an alpaca/wool blend, and still very lanolin-y, and just pleasant under the fingers. And I like that it's local and natural and all that good stuff, too. It's got good drape, and isn't saggy.

I don't love the pattern. If I had been knitting it for myself and not as a shop sample, I'd have made a number of modifications. First, I'd do stockinette instead of garter stitch. (The yarn lends itself well to garter, I guess, but aesthetically I prefer stockinette, and I think the yarn would do well.) Also, the instructions specifically say not to pick up the wraps at the end of the short rows, which bugs me to no end. It just seems wrong. Those are the two big ones. I wasn't thrilled with the way the pattern was written, but that's more technical than aesthetic. I just knitted it as fast as I could. And grumped a bunch along the way. I did fourteen repeats of the pattern, and bound off. It took me two weeks to knit the whole thing, and then I put the buttons on last night.

(It must be said that I could not have survived this pattern if it weren't for the handy row keeper-tracker thingy that my friend Aubrey made and gave to me. You can see it in the top photo, that colorful piece of ribbon. Someday she will have her Etsy store up and running, and you should all get one. It's a lifesaver when it comes to patterns where every row is different and there's a lot to keep track of. Thank you, Aubrey!)

Now I can take it to the shop. Fiona is going to block it for me -- normally I'd be happy to do it, but I'm going out of town for a week and would rather give her the unblocked FO than make her wait until I get back to block it and get it to her.

And now I am eager to get back to Husband's sweater. Whew! I guess, much as I didn't enjoy the knitting of it, the Emily Capelet was exactly the kind of project I needed to get me back to being excited about... sleeves!

Adventures in Blocking on the Road

My friend LiturgyGeek had a baby. A daughter. BabyLG, we can call her. She was born a few months ago now, but I didn't rush to make her something because I knew I wanted to make a baby sweater for her -- and, well, she was born at Easter. She lives in Iowa and won't need a baby sweater until the fall. A six-month size sweater will be perfect for her. And I knew I would see her Mama in July. Sooooo I didn't rush to get anything done and in the mail.

Anyway, July is here. Seeing LiturgyGeek (and meeting BabyLG) involved a trip to Tampa, Florida (not because they live there, but because the United Church of Christ national meeting was there, and LG and I both had to attend). About a week before take-off, I put down the sweater I'm making for Husband, found a pattern I liked, and bought some yarn.

Side note: can I just take a moment to say how excited I am that Malabrigo is making a superwash worsted now? I'm surely the last person on the planet to have discovered this, but DUDE. Rios is an amazing yarn. I am totally smitten. I would use it for non-baby projects! I would make big-person-sized sweaters out of it! Hooray for gorgeous kettle-dyed superwash wool!

Okay. So I bought the Malabrigo Rios -- two skeins, just in case, but it turns out that I only needed one -- and cast on and had the body, like, a third of the way done by that evening. I knitted on the plane to Florida, I knitted in meetings whenever I could... At one point, LG said to me, "by the way, I haven't seen you knitting here! Are you working on anything? What are you making?" And I got a little cagey. I think I said something like, "Yeah, I'm working on something. I'll, uh, show you later." She got it, and did not push. This is the sign of a good friend-of-a-knitter.

Anyway, I finally finished the sweater about 3 or 4 days in to the meeting. And it totally needed to be blocked. Fortunately, I was staying in a fabulous Embassy Suites suite, and was therefore well-supplied with both space and tools. I pulled out the ironing board and iron, grabbed a washcloth, and went to town with a bit of washcloth-steam blocking. It's a sweet little sweater, but those leaves on the front don't stay flat on their own! (LG, now that the sweater is blocked, you shouldn't have to worry about this again.)

Also, I accidentally dyed the washcloth purple. Sorry, Embassy Suites!

It all worked out in the end. The blocking part, that is. I honestly have no idea if the hotel got the dye out of the washcloth, but I would assume they did. Hotels are generally pros at bleaching the towels.

And the finished product came out nicely. The Cascade pattern is really cute, and very simple to make. I didn't make any modifications this time, but if I were to do it again (and I might some day) I'd make a sixth leaf at the bottom of the placket instead of cutting it off at 5 for the seed-stitch band. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to add, although I understand why the author wrote the pattern the way she did.

I added on the buttons during the business meetings on the next-to-last day of the event. We introduced electronic voting this year, and it took a bit of experimentation to get the hang of sewing on a button and pressing the clicker-thingy at the same time (in the past we just had cards to hold up, which isn't as hard because it doesn't involve the same set of fine motor skills that sewing on buttons requires). It all worked fine, and the buttons looked good AND I voted for important stuff like LGBT human rights.

Most importantly, LG and her husband Backbencher loved the sweater. And I'm sure that BabyLG will look adorable in it this fall, when it actually fits her. LG has promised to send a photo of BabyLG in the finished product when it does fit. For now, just enjoy this Jared-Flood-esque photo of the button band.

Things That Will Look Better When Blocked

That last post about the Sunflower Tam was originally titled "Things That Will Look Better When Blocked" because... well, really, that hat looks a little bit terrible right now, and could definitely use some time drying on a soup bowl.

The other item I've knitted -- and, I'm not ashamed to say, I've been wearing -- that desperately needs blocking is this shawl. I made it a year ago (literally! According to my Ravelry notebook, I worked on it April 10-16, 2010) and just haven't gotten around to blocking it. It's pretty like this, but I do know that the blocking will really make a positive difference, too.

Anyway, this is the Trinity Shawlette, made with a gorgeous locally-made yarn from the Fuzzy Bunny, creatively called "Wool 2-ply yarn," which I bought at Nido. The colorway is a bit crazy -- mustard yellow, apple green, and aqua -- and totally not something I would normally buy (or something you would probably think of as a colorway I'd like at all), but I LOVE IT. And it turns out it works with so much of my wardrobe. And this shawl is perfect in spring and fall, with its wacky bright colors. It makes me very happy.

Seriously, click on that last link for an amazing photo of the yarn in skein form. It's GORGEOUS enough that I need to use all caps to describe it.

Maybe one of these days I'll get around to blocking it properly, so that when I wear this shawl I will be doing justice to the amazing yarn.

Where DID I See Myself in Five Years?

I did need to take a break from Lizard Ridge. Just to knit something else. And I'm glad I did, because I quickly found that I've been short-row-ing for so long that it was actually a challenge to get my hands to knit plain again. Weird!

Anyway, I decided that I needed a new hat. I have been wearing the same Sunflower Tam (Rav link) for a zillion years now (I knitted it back when we lived in Atlanta -- living in the South, knitting a hat was an act of faith!) and I love it but it's not holding up in the New England winters as well as I'd like. The problem is that it's 100% alpaca (again, act of faith! Alpaca is 4x warmer than wool!), and the ribbing "relaxed" enough that it's no longer tight around the ears. Although the hat itself is very warm, the wind comes right in and defeats the purpose of wearing a hat at all. So I decided that I need a wool one. Voila:

Knitting up a new Sunflower Tam was a really good exercise, not just for getting past short rows, but also because it gave me a chance to reflect on how far I've come in the five-ish years since I knitted the last one. There's "far" in the literal sense, moving from Atlanta to Burlington, but there's also "far" in the knitting-skill sense. Five years ago, the Sunflower Tam was a really challenging pattern for me. The fact that every single row was different was intimidating. The funny crossed stitches that stood out over the rest of the pattern were difficult to understand. I learned so much from this pattern, and I was so proud of myself when I'd finished. Five years ago, the Sunflower Tam was hard to make.

Now, not so much. It took me two evenings to finish. The crossed stitches took a moment for me to figure out, but I didn't have to read the instructions for them every single time I encountered the direction to do one. I watched TV while knitting, because I didn't have to concentrate so hard on the row-by-row pattern. The Sunflower Tam pattern was FAR more intuitive the second time around.

What a difference five years makes, eh?

Makes me think back to my life five years ago -- and that classic interview question, "where do you see yourself in five years?" Most of what I expected for myself has come true. By now I figured I'd be married to Husband (check!), working in a church (check! -- although 5 years ago I didn't think I was going to be a solo pastor, and now I have a hard time imagining anything else), a homeowner (check!), and a mother (ummmm, not-check). The other details, like where I'd be living, were less important at the time -- although 5 years ago I don't know if I'd dreamed I could be fortunate enough to live in Burlington, Vermont, a place I adore. It's really wonderful to look back on where I've been over the past five years and know that I'm far more satisfied with my life (aside from the no-kids thing) than I really expected I would be five years ago.

Knitting a new Sunflower Tam made me reflect on how truly blessed I am. I guess knitting will do that sometimes.


Details: Yarn is Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran (now discontinued) in Merlot, ~1.5 skeins (two different dye lots but you'd never know), on size 9 needles (size 8 for ribbing -- I might take out the ribbing and redo it on 7s). It will look much better when blocked.

BSJ Received

Baby Surprise Jacket #6 is finished.
(I know I packed the buttons when I went on vacation, but I couldn't find them when I got to the house and was ready to sew them on. Buttonless BSJ it is!


New Mama is very happy with her gift. "It's a California Hippie Baby Jacket!" she exclaimed. I think this one will get some good use, buttons or no.