geddy tee progress

I have been absolutely enjoying working on this project. The combination of colors makes me happy, and the yarn has been a dream to work with. I am particularly tickled by the way my granny square shoulders turned out. From the little yellow nuggets in the middle to the sparkles in the fuchsia, they are just perfection.

The main color green yarn is as soft to work with as it felt in the skein, and it has beautiful stitch definition. I ended up using metal needles for this which was a great choice - like buttah! I’ve been using my lovely rosewood needles for everything so I forgot how slick and quick these metal ones are. I have made a lot of progress with very little hand strain. 

These photos were taken on Sunday and I am all the way down the back to where the arm holes end and the body will be joined in the round when the front is done. Time to pick up stitches on the front next! I’m really looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

outta dodge

I took a much needed day trip down to the Monterey Peninsula this weekend. Among the wave watching and pelican photography visits were of course made to my two favorite local establishments, Back Porch Fabric and Monarch Knitting. 

I enjoyed a browse around all of the colorful fabrics in BPF, as always. It was tough to not bring many things home with me, but I stuck to a few larger cuts that I imagine may be made into bags or similar non-quilt projects. I am not usually drawn to oranges and reds, but it was a vibe this time. I am looking forward to using that colorful kaleidoscope print especially.

And I couldn’t not come home with this yarn. It is so very Wicked in its appearance, I splurged. I have often seen but never purchased Spincycle. It’s a bit itchier than I would normally choose, but their colors are quite fantastic though I’ve often wondered if it just turns out looking muddy. There was a hat knit up that looked really striking just in stockinette (with shaping, of course) and it had a different lining yarn that was softer so I am wondering if I could do the same thing, potentially with any leftovers from the sweater I’m working on right now. It would be a green extravaganza. 

Along with that, I kept passing by the display of squishy ikigai yarn. I LOVE the colors and the last few visits I have eyed these skeins. Since I was viewing this as a “Yarn Crawl Addendum” for myself, I did decide to splurge and get some. I think they will end up being a scarf after browsing around a few patterns. Whatever it is, it’s going to be beautiful and so very soft. 

Besides the bright and bold fabrics, I found a cute snail print in the sale corner that will potentially be pajamas, and I impulse bought a set of 8 fat quarters that are all different prints of bright kitties. No idea what they will end up being, but whatever happens it is going to be so fun. 

springy table topper

Last weekend I had a hankering to play with some more scrap sewing. I am really enjoying the stash of “precuts” I made for myself and squirreled away (this reminds me I should do it again with the growing stash of scraps from recent projects). I wanted to make something to grace my dining room table for spring/March so I pulled a quantity of greens and found myself a neutral linen (not surprising for me) to cut to match for patchwork improvising. 

 

I wanted to make simple four patches and combine them to make a sparkly patchwork panel. It was a lot of fun on my design wall moving things around for a couple of days. I bordered it with a great plaid that I think just takes it over the top straight to St. Patrick’s Day. That gave me a goal, to finish it before the holiday today. 

I used this pretty linen-ish garden print for the back and, as has been my habit lately, decided to hand stitch the binding down to the back. It took me a little bit longer, but I finished it by Friday the 13th! I’ve actually been enjoying the slower approach to binding. The hand stitching without need for a pattern or planning is meditative. 

I chose to do crosshatch quilting, in the light gray thread that was already on my machine. It was quick and simple, pretty much the same as the patchwork. This is not an overthinking project. 

It took me a few days to actually “style” the table so it looks festive, but here’s my springtime table scape! Shopping around the decor and things I recently organized was satisfying and fun. I love how it turned out, and I am really pleased with how the handmade items I’ve been pulling out and creating new have made my home cozy and full of personality. 

couldn’t wait

I couldn’t wait - I have several projects going right now that are really quite fun, but I kept thinking about this sweater. I just got done playing around in the yarn stash finding appropriate colors to combine with the green I recently bought. Lo and behold, I sense a movie theme! This should be fun. The dark pink even has some gold sparkles on it. Perfection. 

2026 yarn crawl

Well that was fun. It’s been a weekend full of lots of different things so this seems like it was forever ago, but in fact it was just Friday. I’ve got some vacation to burn, so I took the day off to have breakfast with a friend after which we moseyed over to the local yarn shop for the first day of this year’s Bay Area Yarn Crawl. Ahem. This is the chaos that resulted. The bag on the left is mine, the pile of books and the basket is hers. We certainly did some shopping!! 

I also snagged a couple of pattern books (free!) but I admit I didn’t have a whole lot of patience to sift through them all. I did, however, do a great job picking through the sale yarn outside and here’s what I got. It’s all cotton or cotton blends, which is something I appreciate so much about this shop - she carries great non-wool options. The four colorful skeins on the right, and possibly the hank, will be headed to my mom. The four neutral balls on the bottom are going to be great for gnomes, particularly the white and gray for beards and noses. I wish I had just one more ball of that fluffy yellow because then I would know exactly what sweater I would make, but as it is I might be a bit too short to want to play yarn chicken. Still, it’s so soft and I’ll find something to make with it. 

 

Once we managed to get inside, it was really fun to look around the trunk shows Kristi had displayed. She ordinarily has a great selection of yarns but boy these indie dyers did not disappoint! The whole bottom row of skeins is from those trunk shows. The left, highly variegated yarn is from Forbidden Fibers Co and will be my first (brave!) foray into a super variegated sweater and learning to alternate skeins. The rest of the bottom row is from a dyer with moody colors I just loved called Dragon Hoard Yarn. I limited myself to tonal skeins for projects I had picked out otherwise I would have come home with many more of her beautiful variegated works. The set of four purpley red will be a sweater, likely an Amrum. The dark slate blue will be an Architexture scarf, and the other one? Well that was kind of a compromise impulse buy. I think it might make a nice second Architexture, if I like knitting that pattern, or I will find something to do with it. I have many fingering weight shawl patterns, and it was too pretty to pass up. The bright green at the top is going to be a Geddy tee, the Noro (another sale yarn) and navy might end up as a sweater or vest - definitely a garment of some sort. And the last skein was a total no plan but I kept walking by the cubby and picking it up. There were many more so I could have gotten another sweater quantity, but this one seems to say accessory to me.

Safe to say I have supported my local yarn shop, and I have plenty of projects planned for the year! These of course are all in addition to the ones I already have queued up from my stash. My I’ve gotten ambitious. There may not be enough hours in a day. I did decide I don’t need to do anymore yarn crawling over the next week. I have a trip down to Pacific Grove next weekend, so I will certainly come home with something fun from my other favorite yarn shop, but other than that this is plenty of yarn to keep me busy for a good while. 

neapolitan, finished

Fastest sweater ever. I finished this sweater 3 and a half weeks. I even blocked it the same day I bound off. Can you tell I am excited about it? I was intending on writing some in progress posts, but this just flew off of my needles. I did not want to put it down. This is the Coloring Book Raglan by Aimee Sher and I would highly recommend the pattern as an easy and fun knit. I like the twisted ribbing at the neck, arms, and hem, and I really enjoy the wide 3/4 length sleeves. I realize the colors are a slant rhyme to Neapolitan ice cream, but I can't not think of it when I see the stripes. The whole sweater feels a little cotton candy-esque to me, too. 

The stripes are from yarn that Dave got me on one of his trips to visit our friends in Bend, Oregon (before we separated, obviously). He met the alpacas, which is pretty cute. He brought me back four skeins of beautiful yarn that I have not known what to do with since. (The fourth color is white and is a slightly lighter gauge). I thought about different types of projects with one or two skeins in combination, but nothing really excited me. I did want to try to keep them together if at all possible because they actually look really beautiful together. When I saw the pattern for this I decided using them in this way was a great idea. I debated adding the brown in the mix with the pink, purple, and robin egg blue, but its actually my favorite part. It adds a maturity to the overall mix so it doesn't look so little girly. 

The main color is a yarn I will definitely use again in a sweater. It is Woolfolk Luft, and I "met" it on yarn crawl last year. I forget which shop had it, but I remember picking up a skein and thinking it was so very soft and I could probably wear it next to my skin (which I usually don't do with wool yarns, itchy). That particular skein was black, so when I went looking for a color to use in this sweater I wasn't really sure which way I wanted to go. Gray seemed fine but unexciting to me, and a natural would have looked great with the alpaca colors but likely would have washed me out. The blue was a risk on a couple of levels, first computer screens are notoriously bad at translating real life color and second it's kind of an odd choice, but it's a color I really love on its own so it felt worth giving it a shot. I'm so glad I did. It's a beautiful shade. 

The sweater feels like a cozy old sweatshirt already. The heft of the Luft yarn is just REALLY satisfying, especially in the twisted rib sections. The hem hangs great and, surprise surprise, I really like the neckline. I would definitely make this pattern again in other yarns, maybe in the same one (!) and I'm interested to try out all of the various options for sleeves, length, etc. I'm happy that I have plenty of the alpaca left for other projects, maybe some mitts. I'll have to wear this a few times to really know for sure, but I think I may have just met my favorite knit so far. 

blanket knitting commenced

I finished knitting on my Coloring Book Raglan on Monday and I found myself still wanting to knit. I've been pretty good about planning projects out of my stash lately and this has been sitting in the queue for a bit. I had the yarn wound already and the pattern in my Ravelry library. It was pretty quick work to find the right needles and dig out this super cute stitch marker to match. 

It will be a large circular blanket, which is something new for me. It's been a while since I've made a non-quilt blanket and I have never done circles. It's delightfully simple and requires very little attention aside from making sure the increases are in the right spot and the stripes are the right width. It has grown fairly quickly already! I'm sure it will slow down as the rounds get longer, but this is just one evening of progress and it's looking quite smashing already.