Edinburgh Yarn Festival 2017

Oh my goodness. I went to EYF again this year and my head just about exploded. I love EYF. This year's festival was fantastic - so many incredible yarns and people! I went on Saturday, which was supposedly quieter than Friday, but it was still heaving.

This year I brought the Bean with me, strapped to my chest in the carrier, and I was exhausted before we even started. In the middle of our day we had a nice rest in the Podcast Lounge where I chatted with some lovely people and he had a nap. (I stupidly left my knitting in the bag I dumped in the cloakroom. Fail.) I found some new podcasters to check out and I gushed awkwardly at Louise of KnitBritish, whose podcast I enjoy very much. It's kept me company during many marathon nursing sessions since the Bean's birth and inspired me quite a lot. (She was very gracious and hopefully not creeped out. I have an introvert's fear of coming across like a weirdo, which I think makes me even more awkward when introducing myself to people I admire.)

But the marketplace! The marketplace!

Long-time readers may recall that last year I was strategic. I made a focused shortlist of things to consider buying, and oddly enough I pretty much stuck to the list. This year? Focus is in short supply. I couldn't come up with a shortlist, although I scrolled through the list of vendors repeatedly attempting to do so. Never mind.

I came out with this:

Travelknitter BFL Supersock in Raspberry Beret and Puddled Iron; Phileas Yarns Wanderlust DK in Tamegroute; project bag from Little Grey Girl; book by Tin Can Knits

Some yarn, project bag, a book. A smallish haul, but I am pleased with it. Normally I am all about the yarn at yarn festivals, but this year I found myself looking at other stuff more. Since I don't have much knitting time or ability to focus these days, my existing stash has been weighing on me. I have so much lovely yarn, but it sits there waiting for me. And as it sits, and sits, my goals for it change. Also I haven't used any of th yarn I bought last year at EYF despite my focus. So it feels good to add a few beautiful skeins to the stash this year but not to go overboard.

I realised that I need to stock up on zipper project bags because The Bean can now reach my knitting table and pull my drawstring bags down to play with them. He doesn't understand zippers yet (I know this will come with time), so I don't mine if he plays with a zippered pouch. Yes, I could sew one, but do I have the time? So I bought one and I love it. My current, largely neglected, sock project now lives there.

The yarn? Apparently I'm into BFL right now, since all the yarn I bought has it. BFL is great. The current plan for the Phileas yarn is His Golden Lair by Kourtney Robinson. I have had this pattern for a long time but never found the right yarn for it. I may have to fiddle with it a bit since it's written for worsted weight and I have DK. No plans for the Travelknitter yet. I could conceivably knit socks with it, since BFL/Nylon will be pretty sturdy. I suspect I'll go for some neckwear, though.

Wheee. What a day. I left the festival incredibly overwhelmed but also inspired to make better use of my limited crafting time. By the way, I finally started a public Instagram for my crafty endeavours: predictably, @goodenoughknits. You will find more EYF photos and enthusiasm there.

Accidental Heirlooms, pt 1

I have never made anything that could become an heirloom. (Possible exception - maybe my wedding shawl?) Generally, I make things so that I can use them in my everyday life. I'm not always super practical about it (see last post about superwash yarns...), but neither do I make tons of special occasion things that get used once and then put away. That's what I've always assumed one did with heirlooms, because how else would they last for generations? As it turns out, heirlooms don't have to be delicate fancy creations.

When my son was born I received some things that have turned out to be heirlooms, even if they were never intended as such.

Here's the Bean in a sweater my grandmother knitted for me when I was a baby, on a quilt that my other grandmother made for me. I wore the sweater (easy care acrylic, definitely washable) as a wee thing and I used the quilt on my bed throughout my childhood. He'll grow out of the sweater too quickly, I'm sure, but the quilt should last a while yet. Who knows if these things will pass down to another generation, but for now I'm glad to give them to my baby from his great-grandmothers.

The delicate art

How does the most common piece of unsolicited parenting advice go? "Knit while the baby sleeps." (Wait, that's not the advice you remember?)

Easier said than done. When the baby is sleeping I'm usually trying to eat or shower or sleep or do mundane household tasks. Or we're on the way from point A to point B - he often sleeps in the pram. Needless to say I haven't done a huge amount of knitting in baby Bean's* first month of life.

*Not his real name.

I hear some people manage to knit while nursing. I'm not sure I'm coordinated enough, but next time I'm using circular needles, I'll give it a try. At the moment my only active project is Elijah on DPNs, and I'm nervous about dropping a DPN point-first into an ear or something. (See aforementioned uncoordinated nature.) I'm onto the second arm, though, so the end is in sight. A small circumference means that even if I only do a few stitches at a time I make noticeable progress.

So that's where I'm at with my knitting. I do browse Ravelry a huge amount during 3 am feeds (and 4, 5, and 6 am etc), queuing and favouriting things I won't have time to make for the next 10 years, but hey!

FO: Torrent Socks

I did manage to finish something for myself during all the baby knits. Just in time for warm(ish) weather I have a new pair of woolly socks.

Pattern: Torrent socks by Tin Can Knits



Yarn: Yarn Yard Cairn

Notes: I started this with the medium size, realized it was way too big, decreased to the small size and kept going. I really enjoyed knitting these, partly because the back half of the socks is stockinette stitch - really interesting lace on the front, a nice break on the back, never boring. I may seek out patterns like this in the future.

They fit well, but the yarn is not that hard-wearing. After a few washes, it's gone a bit fuzzy. Even with nylon content I don't think it is great for socks. Oh well. It's soft and pretty and if I use it again I'll make a shawl or something instead.

It's taken me three days to write this post because this is my new reality:



Our baby boy was born 8 May, so he's already two weeks old and we're still not sure what hit us!

WIP Wednesday: Elijah

Just dropping by to show progress on a new WIP. This one has been waiting for an excuse for years - I even bought a matching project bag a few years back.



Pattern: Elijah by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: Katia Cotton 100%

I've made a few things that could be considered 'toys' but never anything for a small person, so I haven't worried much about how they'd hold up with washing. That was definitely a concern for me here - I was less worried about the yarn than I was about how the stuffing would behave in the wash. I don't normally swatch for things that don't need to be a certain size/fit, so I was reluctant to do it for this. But after much avoidance I made a swatch in the form of a small stuffed knitted sausage with the yarn and stuffing I planned on using. Washed it, it held up fine, and off I went! Phew. Swatching vindicated.

Elijah is knitting up quickly so far. I hope I finish it at least by the time the baby shows interest in grabbing things, if not before the birth... we'll see.

More FOs!

Two baby-related FOs to show today - one sewing and one knitting.



This one is an exercise in upcycling. I try hard not to hang onto things I don't need anymore, preferring to give them to a charity shop or recycle them if I can. Sometimes things are past their best, though - my husband had some old hoodies from university that he decided to get rid of in our attempts to purge the junk room aka baby's room. They weren't suitable for the charity shop since they were a bit faded and awful-looking, but the fabric was still in good condition otherwise. So, I made a floor mat. It's a bit of a weird shape, but I think it will be useful to toss on the floor and put the baby on. It's soft and fuzzy, since I sewed it together with the fuzzy sides out. It is also reasonably thick because there are two layers of hoodie.

I didn't use a pattern - just sewed the hoodie bits together and turned inside out. Then, I cut out shapes and sewed them on through both layers of hoodie. This was the first time I tried to appliqué anything. The shapes are meant to cover the backs of embroidered patches that were on the hoodies, plus a few extra to make it look more balanced. I think it turned out okay - it's no thing of beauty, but then I made it to get peed/puked on, so I'm okay with that!

Next up, a baby knitting classic.

Newborn Vertebrae by Kelly Brooker is a free pattern with one size. (Other sizes are available in paid-for versions of the pattern).



I'm not sure if an open-fronted cardigan will be useful for this baby, but it might be - I'm told it is great for babies who spit up a lot. We'll see what sort of baby we end up with. It uses a minuscule amount of yarn, so I used some cotton from my stash that just keeps on giving. I've had some Sandes Garn Mandarin Petit in my stash for a long time: first I made Decimal with it, then with leftovers I made a Little Sisters Dress, and I still had enough left over to make this cardigan. Now I truly have a tiny amount left - just enough to make one or two accent stripes in something, probably. Between all these different projects, I forgot that I had two different dyelots of the yarn - for Decimal I alternated skeins every few rows, according to my ravelry notes. I didn't remember this fact until I added a second ball of yarn while knitting Vertebrae... and discovered that in a different light there is a slight stripe visible. I almost wish it was more pronounced, since it would look like intentional colour-blocking! Whatever.

Won't be long now until I get to meet this baby, so I have another baby thing on the needles that might not get finished in time. Then again, I might still have a few more weeks to go, so maybe I will! More on that in another post.

A little sewing

Has it been a month since I finished anything? Apparently. I finished a few things all at once in the last few days, but at the moment I only have pictures of one - and for a change it's a sewing FO.

The Divided Basket, by Anna Graham aka Noodlehead

I've been meaning to make this for ages, and I actually cut out all the fabric a few months ago but stalled because I didn't have the fusible fleece and fusible interfacing required. Then, when I finally went out to buy it my local fabric shop was out, so I stalled again. But! Finally I got all the bits together and it was pretty quick work once I got started.



I didn't do the optional outside pocket, and I did the fabric handles rather than the covered handles.

Even for a novice like me this was pretty easy, but I had a few difficulties. First, attaching the divider to the lining was super fiddly and I felt like my hands/fingers were way too big to maneuver it all. It worked out in the end, if a bit wonky. Then, the instructions say to fuse interfacing to the fabric first, then fuse the fleece to the interfacing for the exterior of the basket. Fine, except my fusible fleece simply would not fuse to the interfacing. I had to get creative with some extra sewing and it shows through to the outside in some areas. (If you squint you can see it in the seam in the photo below). Next time, I think I'll pick a stiffer fabric to begin with and just skip either the interfacing or the fleece. (I used quilting cotton for this one.) I can see myself making more, since storage is something I desperately need.



When I found this pattern I thought it would be great to store my knitted shawls/hats/gloves etc by the door, since at the moment I just dump them on a tiny table and they fall off onto the floor and it's a mess. Alas, I think this basket is too small for that task - I underestimated how many shawls I have, haha. There are lots of ways I could use it in my house, though. Maybe diapers, as featured in the pattern photos. Or other baby sundries. Or yarn/knitting - I can always use more places to put that stuff.

Anyway, I'm pleased with this. It's a bit wibbly, but it'll do.

FO Friday! Baby things

Wow, how long has it been since I did FO Friday? A long time.

Anyway, I finally sewed buttons on some tiny cardigans and so I can share them with the world.

Here's Little Coffee Bean by Elizabeth Smith.



I used Debbie Bliss Cotton DK, which is really more of a worsted weight yarn. This meant using a looser gauge than intended, because the combination of cotton yarn and tight gauge would have made armour rather than a cardigan. As a result, this sweater is large - technically 6 month size, but I'm pretty sure it's way bigger. That's cool. Hopefully it will fit the small one in an appropriate season.



These are the cute owl buttons I bought at EYF, in action.

I ran out of brown yarn, so had to make the button bands narrower than called for, but I think it looks okay.

Next up: Puerperium by Kelly Brooker

I used Rico Design Essentials Cotton DK, which is quite a shiny cotton. I have been building a small stash of this since it comes in lots of great colours.



The free version of this pattern is just sized for a newborn, so that's what I made. I added some colourwork for interest, adapted from a colourwork pattern found in Geometric Knitting Patterns by Tina Barrett. Knitting colourwork flat is not my favourite thing ever, but for such a small knit it wasn't so bad.

Yay for tiny knits! I currently have no baby knits on the needles and am trying to make some headway on some knitting for myself, but I hear the call of tiny quick knits, so I'm sure I'll have something else on the go soon.

EYF round-up

The Edinburgh Yarn Festival happened and I bought many things. Let's see how I did.

Plan: buy buttons for two baby cardigans.
Result: two sets of cute buttons from Textile Garden

I've sewn on the owl buttons and I'm working on the purple ones today. I find sewing buttons so tedious, but the result is worth it. Look for an FO post for these two cardigans soon!

Plan: buy yarn for Liesl.
Result: three skeins of Triskelion Elmet Aran (this particular yarn isn't on Ravelry yet, link is to other yarns from this company)



Triskelion Yarns blew me away and were my favourite discovery of this year. Beautiful rainbow colours in really interesting, gorgeous yarn blends. The one I bought is BFL/Masham. I don't know anything about Masham sheep, but the yarn is fabulous - a bit rustic, but also smooth. Looks to be hard-wearing. The colour is a beautiful forest green that matches some buttons I already have - yay for button stash-down! Can't wait to knit with it and I'd love to try some of their other bases.


Badly lit picture of the fantastic Triskelion stall.

Plan: Wollmeise
Result: So much Wollmeise
I thought I'd go for Lace-garn and DK, but in the end I went for Lace-garn and Pure.


The lace yarn I bought is the purplest I've ever seen. (Do not be fooled if the photo makes it look blue). Colourway: Der letzte versuch. This will be some kind of cardigan, pattern to be determined. It feels heavy for laceweight - more of a light 4-ply.


Wollmeise Pure in the Sabrina colourway. This is actually teal, not grey/blue/green. TEAL. SO MUCH TEAL. Two skeins should be enough for a sweater, and I'm thinking of making Low Tide by Tin Can Knits. (I bought the book containing this pattern at EYF last year, so things come full circle.) I got these skeins wound by my good friends volunteering at the yarn-winding station - £1 per skein, proceeds went to the Teapot Trust, a charity providing art therapy to chronically ill children. Everybody wins!

Browsing the Wollmeise stall was certainly an experience.



So much colour! Gaaah! I stopped there first just because of the location, and I almost didn't leave... I'm excited to knit with the yarn I bought since it's beautiful and feels so different from other merino yarns I've tried. It's very sturdy and tightly-spun. We'll see how it knits up.

Plan: buy a gradient set.
Result: a cake of merino/silk laceweight from Bilum



This is Pukpuk by Bilum, a Hungarian yarn company I'd never heard of. They had lots of gorgeous gradients, as well as solids available. I'm not sure what this will become, but I've had a running list of gradient-suitable shawl patterns, so will look to that first. I don't often knit with laceweight, but I have enjoyed doing so in the past.

Verdict: it's a miracle! I pretty much stuck to my plans, even if I did go over my suggested budget by a little. I didn't come home with any single skeins of sock yarn this time, though there was much loveliness to be seen and prodded around the marketplace. Guess I'm satisfied with the loveliness in my house at the moment. Though I'd better get knitting if I want there to be space for more EYF yarn next year...

Edinburgh Yarn Fest planning

I'm heading out to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival later today. This is pretty much the highlight of my yarn year, and I am so lucky it's local to me. I always find these events a bit overwhelming, though, so I try to plan before I get there... and then I usually fail to stick to my plans and come home with all sorts of unexpected lovelies. Seriously, the vendor list for this year is so insane. Going to try not to hyperventilate when I get through the gates.

Last year I was on stash-down when the yarn fest rolled around, but yarn fest purchases were on my list of exemptions. I still managed to come home with four single skeins of beautiful sock yarn that I have not yet used. (I used a little bit of one of them for a baby hat - and I have plans for the rest of it, but otherwise these lovelies are still waiting for projects.)

Let's take a look at my best-laid plans for this year.

Non-yarn items:

Buttons for two baby cardigans.
My Puerperium and Little Coffee Bean are both entirely finished except for buttons, and typically I have nothing suitable in my rapidly expanding button box. There are a few vendors there that will have buttons - I'm particularly excited to check out Textile Garden - so I'm sure I'll find some great things.

ALL THE YARNZ:

Yarn for Liesl.
Ever since I frogged my old version of this cardigan years ago because it had stretched out, I've been meaning to make another. With my current shape, I think it would be super useful - for the first time in my life I actually think I look good in cardigans that are only buttoned at the top! If I add buttons all the way down like I did last time, it should continue to be useful once the baby is out. Plus, I remember it being a really quick knit, and I would love to make a quick sweater for myself before the baby arrives. As a bonus, I have some great buttons for this already, so I'll try and get some yarn to match so I can work on using my button stash.

Some Wollemeise.
This is my first chance to buy Wollemeise in person. Not going to pass this up. I'd like to pick up a skein of lace, since the yardage on those is amazing and I might be able to make a whole sweater out of it. I'm also considering getting some DK for a second attempt at Evenflow, but we'll see what I can find!

A gradient set.
I'll see what I see, but there's bound to be something beautiful. I've had my eye on several patterns for gradient shawls etc lately, so I'd like to get some suitable yarn.

I'm looking forward to checking out Kate Davies new yarn, as well as Ysolda's, and I'm sure to spend some quality time perusing the Old Maiden Aunt stall.

Notice I have no "single skeins of sock yarn" listed on my shortlist. Will that stick? Unlikely. I'll report back with my success / massive failure later on!

Are you going to EYF? If you see me, give me a shout. (I'm the one in the Raiun cardigan with a 33-week bump!)



Bring on the yarn fumes!

WIP: Torrent Socks

Thought I'd give a proper update on one of the Blue Period projects I alluded to before.



(They're blue, but not THIS blue. Photo colour does not correspond to real life.)

My Torrent socks are proceeding apace. Given how many projects I have on the go, I'm actually surprised by how quickly these are going. Nearly at the heels! The back of the ankle is all stockinette; I think this helps with the speed as well as making them very enjoyable to knit. I get bored easily with all-stockinette projects, and bogged down with nothing-but-lace, so these are the best of both!

Ever had a project go more quickly than you expected?

What does making mean to me?

A Playful Day is back with her podcast, and has a new creativity/blogging challenge.

What does making mean to YOU?

Making means different things to me at different times in my life.

Food tins - washed, dried, and ready for upcycling

Lately, making confers on me a sense of control. For example, 2016 has brought some unexpected work-related changes that have left me feeling frustrated and disenfranchised. There is nothing I can do to change this situation for the foreseeable future, so I've been left feeling powerless and stuck. However, even when life gets chaotic I know that I at least control what I'm producing creatively. (Of course, creativity has an element of chance / serendipity / unpredictability, and that's cool too.) I need to remind myself of this at particularly stressful times; I often find stress impedes my creative impulses, even though intellectually I know that I'll feel better about things if I get out there and make stuff.

Drainage holes hammered through the bottom, decorated with washi-esque tape

On that note, I've been using my knitting and other creative pursuits lately as manifestations of my own choice. I can choose what I make and when. I have the power to create a physical object with my own hands. I can create something beautiful that is also useful to me. Making gives me something else to focus on, other than the things I can't control.

Tada! New pots for some wee succulents

Images in this post are from this morning's attempt to turn food tins into plant pots. I'm rather pleased with them, but we'll see if the washi tape gets ruined if I spill when watering...

Blue period

These are my current WIPs. Apparently I'm in my blue period? (To be fair I love blue and use it a lot, but didn't realize until now that all my WIPs were similarly dark blue.)

In the pile is a Puerperium baby cardigan in navy blue and pink-purple cotton, Pecan Crush cardigan in my reclaimed BFL/Alpaca yarn from my last post, and Torrent socks in lovely Scottish hand-dyed yarn I've had in my stash since moving to Scotland in the first place. (Stash-match FTW!)

Three WIPs makes me a little antsy, but I am enjoying them all. I'll finish the baby knit soon enough which will bring me down to two long-haul projects, though don't be surprised if I immediately cast-on another tiny quick baby project!

Do you have colour themes in your knitting without even realizing it?

Unmaking

The last few days I've been working on some long overdue frogging.



That blue blob was the entire body portion of a Cria cardigan. It was supposed to be half my entry to the Outfit Along of 2015, run by Untangling Knots. Despite attempting to pay attention to measurements and gauge, I neglected to notice that the sleeves were way too big until after I'd finished the body. Since This sweater is a top-down, seamless-set-in-sleeves type deal, once I'd finished the body there was no easy way to go back and fix the sleeve caps. If I'd been going for SUPER POOFY sleeves I would have just kept going, but that's not what I wanted for this cardigan. So I shoved it in a corner for months while I worked on other things, unable to bear the prospect of unraveling all my work.

I dug it out again in the spirit of sustainability. Though I'm not officially stashing down this year, I would like to be more mindful of my yarn purchases and more mindful of choosing and using the yarn I already have. That means frogging projects that aren't going anywhere and finding a new use for the yarn. Once repurposed, this yarn will become something else - reused, returned to circulation, not abandoned to dust / dark closet corners.

My first act of making in the Maker's Year is unmaking.

This post is part of The Maker's Year hosted by A Playful Day.

In related news, I've joined Twitter. (The last one to do so, ever?) You can find me @goodenoughmakes. It's still a bit bare bones over there, but I'll come up with something to put there soon.

Baby FOs: Gidday and Zigging

Time for an FO round-up! First, the last FO of 2015.



Pattern: Gidday Baby by Georgie Hallam

Yarn: Rico Design Essentials Cotton DK

Mods: Added more button holes, attempted to close YOs in yoke with knitting through back loop, though some of them still show.

Notes: Super cute, super quick knit. I enjoyed making this. I made the 3 month size, with an awareness that babies (like bigger folk) don't necessarily comply with size standards, so I hope it fits at some point in a relevant season. Cotton yarn was my choice because this baby is due in spring... but spring in a place that doesn't get particularly warm, so cardigans are useful year-round. And, surprise surprise: it's teal. My husband teases me about my love for teal and when he saw this he joked that this baby is going to be dressed exactly like me. So I told him I'd make something green and black to match him.

This next one is green on green, though. First FO of 2016!



Pattern: Zigging by Sarah Ronchetti

Yarn: Easyknits Deeply Wicked and Old Maiden Aunt Merino Superwash 4 ply

Mods: Big ol' pom-pom!



Notes: Not much to say about this one. Pretty quick, and got me back into the rhythm of colourwork since I haven't done any in a while. I have some colourwork things for myself I want to make soon, so I had better start them before my hands forget how to hold one colour in each hand.

2015 knitting recap

Here's what I made in 2015 - a paltry 9 finished objects! I think I finish fewer things every year. Ah well, it's not about quantity, right? I had a lot going on this year that curtailed my knitting output. Knittingwise, I attempted several sweaters that I abandoned in various states of non-completion... I have some frogging to do, but maybe this year that yarn will become something! Still, I'm pleased with the things I made this year.



Top row: Gidday Baby by Georgie Hallam, Arya Mitts by Patti Waters, Cinnamon Stone Shawl by Verybusymonkey

Second Row: Itaca by Stephen West, Varia by Alex Tinsley, Raiun by Kirsten Johnstone

Third row: Fleegle heel socks, Tauriel socks by Josiah Bain, Luna Viridis by Hilary Smith Callis.

Apparently this was the year I focused on accessories, even though as I said above I attempted a few sweaters. The cardigan I did manage to finish, Raiun, is my favourite FO of the year. I wear it all the time - it is an excellent transitional weather piece in this land of unpredictable temperatures. Plus, I'm really getting into open-fronted cardigans (more on this later.)

I had made myself some goals for 2015, so let's see how I managed.

2015 goals
1. Stash down, with a few exceptions.

Exception 1: I will buy yarn to make a Pomegranate sweater. Bought yarn, decided to make Even Flow instead due to newfound love of open-fronted cardigans, abandoned because I think the pattern needs a smooth semi-solid yarn instead.

Exception 2: I will buy yarn at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival and/or the yarn crawl, should anything unmissable jump out at me. But I will show restraint! Restraint at EYF? Debatable. haha. I came home with 4 more skeins of hand-dyed sock yarn which I needed like a hole in the head. But they are so pretty and I love them.

Exception 3: I will buy yarn to make gifts if I don't have anything appropriate in my stash. Bought yarn for Itaca, Varia, and Gidday - over third of my projects were apparently gifts this year, since the Fleegle Heel socks were also a gift though made from stash.

In the end stashing down didn't really happen because my exceptions were not very restrictive. I didn't keep a good tally of yardage in/out, but here it is roughly.

Projects knit from stash: 6 (5 one-skein sock yarn projects and one sweater quantity)
Projects cast-on immediately with 2015 yarn purchases: 3 multi-skein projects
Skeins bought with no project in mind: 4 sock yarn, 1 SQ for Pomegranate that turned out not to be for that and is languishing in the frog pond, 4 extra skeins of yarn I intended for Gidday but didn't like the colour combinations so put on hold for something else.

So I didn't quite break even this year. I did knit from stash more than I realised, and I stuck to my non-restrictive rules, so not a total failure. But not really a resounding success either. Ah well!

2. Finish allocating yarn to patterns in my Stash Match project, including my sweater-quantities. Haha FAIL. I did two Stash Match posts this year: Sock Yarn and Laceweight. This leaves me three more to do. I valiantly tried to decide on my alapca stash projects in December but could not come to a final decision, so expect a post on this some time in 2016. I am also debating destashing some of the other two categories to make space in my house because I can't see myself ever using some of this yarn.

So that was 2015! I'm due a real FO post on the Gidday cardigan, plus I have the first FO of 2016 to share, and some news on WIPs. Plus some goals for 2016. Yikes. Hope your 2015 was delightful and productive in crafty and non-crafty ways!

FO: Arya Mitts

Oh hello! I didn't realize it had been several months since I showed any knitting progress. I have been doing some knitting behind the scenes, but it has been slow going - didn't feel like taking progress photos of another few centimetres of twisted stitch cable every week. And I abandoned a cardigan I was working on in a fit of annoyance. That probably deserves a post of its own if I can be bothered to take it out of the corner I've shoved it in. Anyway, I did finally finish something!



Pattern: Arya Mitts by Patti Waters

Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock



Mods: Changed the stitch count because as written with my gauge the circumference was massive. I didn't do any wrist shaping out of laziness, so these are just a long tube - but the stitch pattern is very stretchy, so I don't miss the shaping. I made the thumbs longer than written.

These took ages because I didn't focus on them, but ultimately I enjoyed knitting them. The cable pattern was intuitive once I got into it, and it certainly kept my interest. The yarn is so pretty - and a surprisingly good fit for these cables. (Photos don't show the pops of purple and green running through very well, but they are awesome.)



I'm very pleased with these. Unfortunately I seem to have lost my slouchy green fingerless mitts from last year, so these ones are now going to fill a gap in my collection. (The gap being "long fingerless mitts that aren't bright pink." I still wear the pink ones with love, but since I wear almost exclusively green/turquoise/blue when it comes to outerwear, they don't really fit my accidental colourscheme.) Plus, another tick off my stash match list! Woohoo. Speaking of which, I'm due another post on that once I can figure out what to do with all my miscellaneous light weight alpaca yarn. It's on the list.

New WIP: Arya mitts

I've made a start on the Arya Mitts by Patti Waters. This is another project towards my Stash Match.



I'm glad that I'm finally using this yarn because it is beautiful. This yarn was a gift in a swap from several years ago. It's Cherry Tree Hill Supersock. Very pretty in the skein, but as I was winding it I fell in love with the colours even more. It's subtly variegated in blues, greens, and purples - I thought it might be too busy for this cable pattern at first, but I think it will work okay. The twisted-stitch cables are surprisingly intuitive!

FO: Cinnamon Stone Shawl

The greenest shawl ever is finished.



Pattern: Cinnamon Stone Shawl by Verybusymonkey



Yarn: Old Maiden Aunt Merino Superwash 4-Ply in Emerald City colourway

Notes:

Before I start criticizing the pattern, I want to say that it is beautiful and I love the result with some reservations. I think it is very worth knitting if you like the look of it, but be prepared to deal with some issues. The first half of the shawl went smoothly and was very enjoyable, but my troubles began once I hit chart 3.

First, the pattern along the bottom edge follows three charts - my first thought was to tape the charts together to form one seamless huge chart. But alas! The charts are different sizes, so the rows do not line up. If I had been more committed, I would have done some print sizing experimentation, but I just lived with it. It slowed me down and caused me to grumble a bit, but oh well.



Second, there are some errors in the pattern(or maybe the pattern is totally fine and I'm just losing my mind - always possible). Other ravelers also ran into trouble where I did, which makes me think the pattern is to blame rather than my pattern-reading skills. Frustrating, but these things happen. Thank goodness for Ravelry. Anyway, I followed some very helpful notes to fix the problems - I've linked to them in my Rav notes here.

I'm not entirely happy with the lace at the bottom edge - I feel like the fact that it is reverse stockinette makes the YOs look messy and undefined. I much prefer the way the middle section looks with extra knit stitches thrown in for contrast and to define the lace a bit more. Does that make sense? It's still pretty, but not as crisp as the rest of it.



My final small disappointment is that the way I prefer to wear shawlettes doesn't show off the gloriousness of this lace pattern. Sigh. (This is my own issue, not a fault of the pattern, though the pattern schematic is a bit misleading when it comes to shawl shape. Or maybe I just blocked it wrong?) I think this would look fabulous worn over the shoulders with the lace flowing down the back... like my picture on the chair above. I tend to wear things bandit-style, however; this particular arrangement crumples up the lace in this case. (I have made plenty of triangle and crescent-shaped shawls that do not do this, so it's not a function of shape so much as lace placement, I think.) It's fine, though - even if the lace gets crumpled when I wear it, it's still totally the greenest thing I own. GREEN FTW.

The only mod I made was to forgo the picot bind-off in favour of a standard stretchy bind-off.

Altogether mixed results, but I'll wear it with love this autumn/winter. And the yarn is still my favourite.

Moar swaps

This has been the summer of swaps. In addition to the sock/shawl swap, I also took part in a more standard gift swap. I sent fun things to someone, and a third person sent fun things to me - it was the standard secret kind of swap where nobody knew who would be sending them stuff. As it turns out, Erin sent me a delightful package of wonderfulness. It's fun to get post!

Local was the theme of this package. Erin lives in NYC and is originally from Savannah - so she packed it full of things from both places.



Let's talk about that gradient. It's handspun and it is rustic and beautiful. I can't decide what to make with it - maybe the Moab Shawl by Verybusymonkey, or something similar.

Also included in the package were fancy flavoured sugars, exciting chocolate (goat, sheep AND cow milk varieties), honey soap, and blueberry jam. Particularly of note is the jam, produced by Anarchy in a Jar. Here's something you might not know about me: for the last 13 years (apparently), whenever I talk / think about jam this old Weebl and Bob video comes to mind. (Now you know!) Anyway, this anarchic jam is only going to reinforce the association I have between jam and revolt. (Plus it is delicious.)

Thanks, Erin! I'm truly spoiled.