loveliest neckwear models in the world

(From left to right, ravelry deets: superstar cowl; wink scarf; humperdinck neckwarmer; stormy wisp; latte neckwarmer)

I definitely had a theme for new year's gifts this year and was willing to sacrifice all practicality to that theme. And so even poor Emily, who probably usually has a pretty warm neck, got a neckwarmer out of me. (But even Tanzania has a rainy season, right?)

Let's keep this (relatively) short, shall we? All yarn is from the Plucky Knitter. (Inspiring colors, delightfully soft, what's not to love about the Plucky yarns?)

Two Bainbridge scarves, one with the remix mods of FlintKnits:



The pink is Single Ply Merino in True Love; the orange is Merino Seacell in Pumpkin Latte. The pink is knit in a broken rib, which I thought really suited the single ply yarn. It took me much longer to find a stitch pattern that I liked with the merino seacell and I finally ended up using a bramble stitch. In the round, working the back side of the bramble stitch is actually easier than working the front. Here's how it works:
Round 1: knit
Round 2: repeat p3tog, (k1, p1, k1) all into one stitch
Round 3: knit
Round 4: repeat (k1, p1, k1) all into one stitch, p3tog

I fell in love with Through the Loops! mods to the Wisp pattern and was so happy to try them out with Fingering MCN in Storm the CastleAnd then two patterns that I improvised:









A red cowl out of Fingering Merino Superwash in Va Va Voom, featuring a star stitch and a modified version of the cherry blossoms from the hanami shawl. And a purple neckwarmer in Bulky Cashmere in Humperdinck with vintage buttons, loosely inspired by the Fidget pattern.

I'd love if we had occasion to take pictures similar to the top one more often, but I'll take what I can get. Many thanks to the Churchmans for hosting our crowd (and judging our fierce Iron Chef battle)!

Baby Cole's sock yarn sweater

Baby Cole's Thanksgiving Sweater

Cole - age 2 months - is wearing the sweater I knit from a skien of hand died sock yarn I bought at Stiches East, a knitting EXPO in Baltimore. The theme of the EXPO was "Knitting Outside the Sox" - lots of sock yarn and ideas for things to knit with it besides socks. Size 12 months - but it just fits!
(Cole is the child of one one of Emily's grad school friends from Emory. She lives in DC ad we've adopted her and her husband for Thanksgiving.)

at least it's too warm now anyway

After sharpening my seaming skills, I decided I wanted to finish this sweater before it was too warm to wear. The pattern is the Swirled Pentagon Pullover from Knitting Nature (same book as the droplets; many of its patterns are on my "to knit" list.) It's knit in Rowan Pure Wool Aran, a Christmas gift (which also included my mom allowing me to drag her around a lovely yarn store calculating yardage requirements and debating over colors for days on end).

Great pattern, great yarn, great. Right? I'd even thought that superwash wool was a big plus. In fact, it might have been, had I tried washing my swatch before starting. But, honestly, that seemed like a useless step. I'd knit the swatch. I'd gotten gauge. What else could the yarn want from me? Turns out that superwash wool grows by about a third after washing. So blocking left me with a sweater that had a ridiculously floppy collar and was about 7 inches too long and much, much too wide. (It's a pity I didn't have a working camera during this process. Although, I guess you all don't really need pictures of me crying over a lot of blue-green yarn.)

Luckily, Ravelry saved the day, by letting me know that this was totally normal and all I had to do was put the sweater into the dryer and check it every five minutes until it was back to size. (This is why everyone needs to sign up for Ravelry!) And, luckily, my laundry room has open outlets so I could bring my computer and work. This did get me a few choice comments, including one that suggested that the laundry room must be a great place to steal my neighbors' wireless. And it almost completely worked: I'm perfectly happy with the length and if the arms are a little too long, it will just encourage me to stretch.

But, you see, what that picture above doesn't show is the amount of fabric that's pinned behind my back. As Keren has pointed out, this is an important piece of information. So there it is: about 6 inches of extra width. It's not that big of a deal except when I sit down and then the fabric balloons all over the place and looks totally goofy.

Having knit other sweaters too large, I know my options: frog, seam or block? Clearly, blocking is not the way to go. And frogging seems like a darn shame. I think I have a seaming plan that will work, but I may also decide that I just won't sit down on the days I wear this sweater. Since spring is slowly coming to town, this seems like a plan that might work for the next six months or so.