Birthday was last week so I went with my sisters to the local yarn shop to do some yarn shopping. I truly think nothing is more enjoyable than to leisurely stroll through a shop that has colorful fuzzy balls that could be turned into countless garments and objects. Really, nothing can come close to it.
I've gone yarn shopping many a time via the internet but haven't gotten much of a chance to do local. Last year I did buy some yarn to
make a felted purse and two years before that I picked up some Luna to make
my Liesl. But nothing too recent. So it turned out that I became maybe, uh, overly excited about this trip of mine? Maybe? Probably a yes to that but it's OK by me.
So this is what I picked out from all the balls and skeins of temptation:
Very pretty! This headband has already been knitted up (couldn't help myself), and is being used by my sister Catherine as an earwarmer. The yarn I used is Cascade Sierra in a blue very similar to Maui blue. I altered the pattern some to make it narrower in width. I removed two stitches on each edge of the piece to bring the number of stitches down to 24. I hopefully will come back and post more about this earwarmer and have a photo or two of the finished piece!
And for the next pattern. I chose to do the Holi Mitts by Jaya Srikrishnan that was published in
Color Style by Pam Allen and Ann Budd:
This book was given to me by Catherine for Christmas the other year and I've been eyeing these gloves ever since. Colorwork knitting is so tempting to do but so very intimidating at the same time. This would be my first colorwork project and I can't wait to start! I will be using four skeins of Brown Sheep Wildfoote in green, lavendar, blue, and white. Spring colors!
And the third and final project. This project, which I am currently working on, is the
Ringwood Gloves by Rebecca Blair that was featured in the 2010 Deep Fall issue of Knitty magazine:
YES! I am doing the unbelievable feat of knitting my own gloves. Good grief--I can't even make myself believe it. :) Socks, gloves, fingerless mitts with half fingers, toys with tubular limbs. . . All of that has scared me over the years because of double pointed needles. But I am laying my fears aside and nipping the thing in the bud by doing the hardest thing I think I've done so far.
Am I over reacting again? Definitely yes. Sorry, this is what happens sometimes, especially when knitting is in the same sentence.
Whatever the case may be, I feel like the gloves are coming along very well. I am able to wield the double pointed needles (very much unlike the time I was knitting a small stuff animal, please allow me to erase that memory), and I've made great progress. I will be posting more about the Ringwood Gloves later this week to explain some final pattern/yarn details.
So there are my three birthday yarn projects and what fun they have been!
Labels: knitandcrochet
