Stranded!

I seem to be knitting a lot of stranded things lately. Mostly, I think it's because the yarn in my stash lends itself to the technique: I have a couple different yarns in more than one color, but not enough of each color to make a whole project.

Having finished my husband's sweater recently, I've been trying to find an appropriate project to use up all the yarn I have left, something like 3 skeins of the brown and 2 skeins of the cream, in addition to the 1 skein I have of another cream colorway. After searching Ravelry for bulky-yarn patterns, I eventually came upon the Northern Lights Icelandic Poncho by Vedis Jonsdottir, who is actually from Iceland. The pattern called for a lopi yarn, but since I'm trying to use up the rest of my Eco Wool, the yoke design is knitting up with more distinct stitch definition and less fuzziness than I would expect to get from lopi. The knitting has gone quickly, especially with size 10 needles! I only cast on Thursday night and I've gotten through the yoke already. All that's left is the mile or so of stockinette and the seed stitch hem. I'm pretty sure I'll have enough yarn left at the end of this project to make another, probably with the colors reversed. I just really want to use up the rest of this yarn.

The other yarn in my stash that I've been trying to knit up is the Littledove Farm Shetland wool blend that I won at the State Fair a couple years ago. Last February, I'd knit up a hat with one of my friend's kids in mind, but it turned out that the kid wanted different colors, and his parents preferred it to be machine washable, so I've held onto the hat, trying to decide if I want to wear it myself this winter, or maybe give it away as part of a set. As this is a sport-weight yarn, I did another Ravelry search, this time for stranded mittens. The winner turned out to be a pattern I already had in my queue, the Squirrel & Oak mittens by Adrian Bizilia. For whatever reason, I was able to knit the pair of mittens over the course of a weekend. One of my coworkers expressed a liking for them, so I'm going to give them to her, and since I'm giving those away, I immediately cast on for a new pair, this one using a chart inspired by the wallpaper from Sherlock. I haven't decided yet whether I'll make the smiley face, but I figure that if I have some yellow yarn lying around, I'll go ahead and do it. Sadly, one hat and two pairs of mittens isn't going to use up my whole stash of it, so I'll likely be knitting a few more stranded things before it's gone.

Well, that's all I've got for tonight, Friends. Until next time.

Three, I mean, Four Things

First, I only have one project on the needles: a hat for one of my two trainers at the gym. They've both been really patient with me, as the clueless newbie in class. Thanks to the both of them, I managed to lose 5 pounds in 6 weeks. We start up again in January, so I should have this finished in plenty of time.

Secondly, I made a couple hats over the Christmas break. One was the purple hat for my other trainer. It was a really quick knit, on big needles with aran-weight yarn. I still need to decide if it should have a pompon on it. As I was finishing that one, my sister-in-law said how much she liked it and wondered if I could make another for her. As it happened, I had another ball of the Nashua Isabella in my project back, this one in topaz. Since we were snowed in, I was able to whip out another hat in time for her to take it home with her the next day. Yay for bringing along that extra ball of yarn!

Thirdly, my copy of Colours of Shetland arrived the day we got home from Christmas! I'm so excited. The photography is gorgeous and I want to make just about everything in it. The highlight of the book (aside from the patterns, I mean) is the accompanying text about the inspirations for the patterns. I love that the whole book is a testament to Kate Davies' love of Shetland.

Lastly, I have some yarn I haven't documented, so I thought I'd throw that in this post, too. It's three skeins of Cascade Ecological wool that I got in a trade with a friend. I'm pretty excited to have it, though I haven't decided yet what it will be. I've been thinking I might want to make another afghan or throw, but I'm sure I'll have to get more yarn. Of course, I have plenty of other things in my queue that I want to knit, so who knows where my fancy will take me?

So, short and sweet today. I'll see you all in January. Happy New Year, Friends!