Episode 29 - Snow Hurricane

Knitting On The Run

Episode 29 – Happy New Year!

Wips, Knitting Fail, Pattern Acquisition, On The Run

FO

Mahalo Socks by Dana Gervais – on the 2nd sock in CoBaSi by Hikoo and progressing nicely

Hibernatum hat by Talitha Kuomi – full disclosure, I know Talitha, we’re part of the same knitting group at our recently closed LYS and she is an amazing human being and also a very talented designer. I’ve never knit one of her patterns before, so when I stumbled upon her Hibernatum hat designed for Alpaca yarn while trying to find a hat to knit with my Criativ DK, an alpaca blend, it was too perfect not to choose! Oh, and it’s a free pattern put out by Classic Elite so go knit this yourself. It would totally work with other fibers too. I cast this hat on Christmas Eve and it’s rather potato chippy because it’s a knit row followed by a simple pattern row and I kept wanting to knit just one more row.

Wips

Frosted Sweater by Paper Daisy Creations, my Christmas cast on – a snowflake-patterned colorwork yoke sweater. She used a gradient mini kit so the snowflakes go from light to dark using 5 colors of a warm blue with a green tint to it on a white background. I found 2 skeins of Debbie Bliss Amalfi in Pale Blue and Denim and also a skein of Hempathy by Elsebeth Lavold in a color just between those two shades so I’m only using 3 colors and I’m hoping I might have enough to make the matching hat.

Plain Vanilla sock in Berroco Comfort Sock in the Bali colorway. I started this pair of socks 2 years ago and got Second Sock Syndrome. It’s now my purse knitting so I’m hoping to finish them this winter. I’m on the second foot, going toe-up with an afterthought heel.

Lush by Tin Cast Knits, my New Years Day cast on

Knitting Fail

Frosted Sweater – take 2. I did run into one issue with this sweater. The Medium would probably fit well if I got gauge, but I have 24 sts per 4 inches instead of 25 which gives me an extra 1.8 inches around the bust in size Medium… that’s just too much. Plus, after trying it on the collar is too wide for a New England winter. So I did the math and I’m going to knit the small but add one pattern repeat of the snowflakes which will give me an extra 12 sts around the bust which, if my gauge holds true, should give me a perfect fit, not too tight, not too loose.

Had to tink back 4 rows on my second Mahalo sock – note to self, don’t start gusset increases while making dinner when boys are cranky. While the gusset increases themselves came out fine, I totally screwed up the lace pattern, by 2 rows, then dropped a stitch and had to tink back to more to fix the now-wobbly looking increases.

Pattern acquisition

Berroco had a pattern sale this past week – one free pattern per person and I picked up the Dahlia shawl by Brenda York, a worsted weight colorwork shawl, experienced level, by a new-to-me designer (never bought a Berroco pattern before, though I love some of their yarns). It’s gorgeous and there are no projects on Ravelry! Looking forward to making mine the first.

Vanilla is the New Black by Anneh Fletcher – I’m finding purl bumps uncomfortable and I heard this pattern is reversible, so I want to give it a try!

On The Run

Still No running for a while – it hurts my back, but walking does not, soooo…. I’m going to train to walk a half marathon in September! I’ve set up a very gradual training plan to slowly work up to 13.1 miles over 9 months and I’m going to take you on that journey with me. I’ve found a half marathon in Salem, MA with both runner and walker divisions, so it’ll be perfect whether or not I get to start running between now and then.