January-February Update

January and February were fairly quiet for me knit-wise. Winter with two kids in school took a lot more of my energy than I was expecting, especially considering that we got (no kidding) 5 feet of snow in the last 2 months. The kids were getting some excellent use out of their knitwear during all the shovelling and car clearing time outside. My son even took his favourite knit hat on his first-ever ski trip last week!


The view from my back deck during a snowstorm. The lump on the right is the BBQ.

I did work on a bunch of designs to submit to various publications. I got a "no" this week, but it was only a day after getting a "yes" from another magazine, which helped to keep it in perspective.

For personal knitting, I've  been picking away at a very plain pair of socks, and a very complicated sweater.

In January, a small yarn and fabric shop opened up one block from my house. I found a small selection of decent sock yarn, but almost all of it was shockingly vibrant. This is the most subdued colorway I could find. I'm keeping the notes for this sock on the ball band. I don't know why I have never thought of this before. I know the format for my plain toe-up socks quite well and only need to record how many stitches to cast on, how many rows to make the foot, how many rows of ribbing I did at the cuff, etc. and this information doesn't really take up much room at all. The first sock is finished and the second is past the heel.

This orange sweater is a tweaked version of Alice Starmore's gorgeous St. Brigid pattern from her classic book "Aran Knitting". This was the first "real" knitting book I ever got, and I never grew out of it the way I did with some other books that I acquired during my early knitting years.

I am modifying the pattern to use thinner yarn, add waist shaping, change the neckband, add ribbing to the hems and cuffs, omit the fringe, and turn it into a cardigan. But other than that, it's exactly as written ;) Here's the back up to the end of the waist decreases.

I made a trip to a larger, out-of-town yarn shop just last week and bought some gorgeous yarn that I can't find here in town. I only bought one ball of each, as I just plan to use it for swatching. I can't wait to try out the fantastically soft and fuzzy pale blue angora!