green

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Taking stock of my knitting basket last night I noticed a theme.... this post is brought to you by the color green. 

Apparently I've been craving Spring without even realizing it. The el nino weather here in California means the hills are gorgeous and bursting with greens. Since daylight savings time passed, it's been so nice to get out and enjoy the outdoors after work again - on the days it isn't gray and rainy of course. I don't mind the rain so much though - more time to knit! The gray and green play well together regardless, kind of like the short piece of cowl I've got started. This is in the new cotton silk blend I'm trying, and I'm having a lot of fun working with it. So soft!

I'm getting close to the color swap on the background on this one. Alas, it wasn't done in time for today like I'd hoped when I started, but I'll keep at it and see how far I can get by the end of the month. Slow and steady, still enjoying. I think it's going to look fabulous and I can't wait to wear it!

Maybe I should start a green quilt just to stay consistent?

inch by inch

I'm still making steady progress on this one. I knit a few rows before I go to sleep each night and that seems to keep the inches coming. I've been so happy working with dk and worsted weight yarns lately that this light fingering yarn seems to go so slowly! It will get there. Maybe not by St. Patrick's Day, but sometime this Spring for sure. 

I'm at least happy to see that I still like the color choices I made now that they are all worked up into the same fabric. I'm especially excited to hit the point where I get to change the background color to that lovely deep teal. I'm not looking forward to weaving in all those ends, though! Ah, knit world problems. 

punk rocky mountain

I finished a hat. In two days! This quick project was just what I needed this weekend. It was rainy and gray and the perfect weather to just curl up and knit all day long. I've been making some progress on my Moonraker, but I really wanted something smaller that I could call finished sooner. 

When I bought this yarn on Saturday the hat I envisioned making for myself was a single skein Violet Waffle like Dave's. To be honest, I've been envying it ever since I finished it. But then Dave bought me the slip stitch knitting book that had this awesome hat pattern in it. I just had to try it. A double whammy quick fix!

I paired up my Rocky Mountain High with the basically full skein leftover El Greco I had from changing course on Dave's hat and threw in the Court & Spark as the accent. There was quite a bit of black in the variegated skein, so it didn't end up with as much contrast as I was envisioning. It is still striking though, no?

The color changes and stripes of diamonds are easier to see on the inside. 

I love the texture and the colors and the slouch. I ended up leaving off a few repeats for less slouch than the pattern calls for, and I think I hit the right length for me. I also love that the bright yellow orange perfectly matches the shell of my ski jacket. I have some leftover so I may make some boot cuffs and/or mittens to match. 

Pattern: Spiral hat from The Art of Slip Stitch Knitting (my Ravelry project page)

Yarn: Madelinetosh Vintage in Rocky Mountain High, Colorado and Tosh DK in Court & Spark and El Greco

Needles: US sizes 4 and 5

weekend fix

Dave and I wandered our way down to Los Altos this Saturday. I had been meaning to check out Uncommon Thread for a while now, but hadn't made the trip. This weekend was a great opportunity to stay out of the rain and pet some wool. And also buy some. 

In my defense, I picked out that little variegated skein down in the corner there. Dave saw a cowl sample made up in the shop and after we decided making it out of the same cashmere yarn was going to be waaay to pricey he picked out some similar colors in a soft cotton silk blend declaring "you're making one of those." Bless his heart.

While we waited for our thousand yards (or so) to be wound up, we checked out their wide variety of books and patterns. This book came home with us. It has a lot of really neat looking patterns that all use variations of slip stitching to accomplish some amazing color work. 

The yarn above is Misti Alpaca pima silk (no alpaca, despite the name) in coral, limon, and shell. The skein below is Madelinetosh (of course!) Vintage in Rocky Mountain High, Colorado. I was excited to see that they had a healthy stock of Madelinetosh in a variety of weights, Malabrigo, and even some brands that I haven't had the pleasure of working with yet like SweetGeorgia and Dragonfly Fibers. If I ever want to spoil myself, there seemed to be plenty of silk and/or cashmere blends around along with some European brands I haven't ever found in the States. Yipee! 

The skein of Madelinetosh was too pretty to pass up so decided to make myself a hat, which I promptly started when we got home. More on that to come!