More finished objects!

My Liesl cowl is finished! In fact, it's been finished since mid-October, but as noted, I'm not the greatest at photographing things. Plus, the Liesl Cowl went straight into my rotation of cozy things to wear out in the world. And with that lovely polar vortex we had a few weeks ago, it has seen a lot of use. The Liesl cowl, if you'll recall started out as a lovely pile of 5 skeins of Quince & Co.'s lark yarn in the marsh colorway:

I then learned how to cast on provisionally, and spent a while memorizing a cable chart, trying to create some sort of nemonic device to remember which slash meant cable front and which meant cable back. I failed at that, but I did learn to "read" my knitting, and could quickly and easily braid my cables without a pattern, which felt like quite the accomplishment!

I started knitting it in late winter/early spring, but did not finish before summer hit. I took it on a trip to Duluth in June - I wish I had taken a picture of me knitting it there, but alas, I did not. I finished it in late September/early October, but it was the end of October before I got around to blocking it. Blocking it did squash my cables some (they are popping back out a little but oops). It felt like it took forever to dry, but mostly I was impatient, because I had worn it a few times before blocking and just wanted it back already.

It has a nice, thick, squashy feel, and drapes well, but also still stands up against the wind and my coat collar. In fact, it has turned out so well that my granmom has asked me to knit one for her - which I have just recently cast on, in the lark-peacock colorway.

Here I am wearing my cowl with my aunt who is an award-winning chocolatier in Portland, OR. Her shop is called Alma and she makes the most delicious (and beautiful) chocolates. The Habanero Caramel Bonbon is divine. 

And if you look back to this post, I am wearing the Liesl with my not-quite-cousin L. 

Fingerless Mittens, Take One

Of all the things I knit, I keep coming back to fingerless mittens. (Fingerless gloves? Whatever. You know what I mean.) Until my two most recent projects, I've always followed some pattern. These ones, though, I just sort of started knitting without much plan. I had some stash to use up - who doesn't?! - and didn't even pay attention to weight of yarn, which was maybe not my brightest decision ever. (Scroll to the bottom for a basic pattern).

So. Remember those? I started working on them last January (aka a YEAR ago), and actually finished them in October, and just haven't gotten 'round to taking blog photos. (See my resolutions from last post!) For once, finished even meant blocked and everything, but alas, I am a bad blogger.

So this is the finished product. There are a few things that I would do differently, but all in all, I am pretty durn pleased with them. They were designed with a man's hands in mind, but it turned out they were a sweater-curse-project, and he was out-of-picture by the time I finished the first one. I cast on 36 stitches, which was probably somewhere between 4-6 stitches too many, and then when I bound off the thumb, I (for reasons I no longer remember) added 3 stitches, for a final stitch count of 39. That was a bad decision; I don't recommend it. I also ended up frogging and re-knitting the second mitt at least 3 times to get it to match the first. That was a huge bummer. 

I love the stripes. I worked really hard to do jog-less strips, and although the jog-less stripe point is not visible here, it actually worked really well. Because I didn't know yarn weights, I ended up doing 3 rows of green for 2 rows of grey; I think the grey is a bulky while the green is an aran. Embarrassingly,  I do not remember purchasing the yarn, and really truly don't know who made them. The green MAY be a Rowan yarn of some kind, but I just have a kind of feeling that's the case.

You can download a .pdf of the pattern here. I have edited the pattern to reflect what I learned while knitting these up! Please post any pattern questions, comments, problems in the comments of this post.

New Year; New Resolutions?

This year, I resolve to be better at posting regularly! See below for the stack of knitting I have yet to post about; there are two finished and unblocked pieces not included, as well as my current knitting project. Whoops.

It's been a kinda tough year (again). My dad's mom died in early November of a stroke. I saw her in late August/early September for my cousin's wedding, and we (almost the entire family - cousins, spouses, aunts, uncles, great-grands) all had a pretty grand time in West Texas celebrating the couple. The whole family got together again in November, which despite the circumstances, was lovely. I got to meet my new first-cousin-once-removed S, and spent a lot of time with L, the older sib - a big girl of 3. 

L and me, reading my new favorite picture book Journey

So I am ready for this new year. I've brushed off last year's resolutions and am re-using some of them. I am making some new resolutions. In no particular order, they are:

• post regularly here
• floss my teeth
• be outside and active more
• eat more vegetables
• try new recipes
• keeping in better touch with friends
• be more social; don't feel guilty about being introverted

Happy new year to you! Best of luck in it!

(PS. You can see me wearing one of my knitting projects in the photo of L and me!)