Monday, December 27, 2010

Now That it's Over

Dear Mom,
With only wrapping paper shrapnel littering the house and the much anticipated Un-Decorating that remains of Christmas 2010, I can reveal some of the gift knitting I've been keeping secret now that the gifts have been opened.
I now realize that I neglected to photograph everything, like some texting gloves and the Marksmans mitts I knit for the hunter in the family. But I did take a picture of this hat, modeled reluctantly by the Young Lady.
This is the Inishmore Hat I made for a nephew. It used about 1 skein of Lamb's Pride worsted and I want to make another for My Hero. I have my eye on a skein of mossy green Donegal tweed in the stash.

I gave you one of these silly Kleenex cosies. I don't know why I am so charmed by this little dude, but it took a tiny amount of time and yarn and I want one for myself.

I am most proud of this sweater, though.
This is my latest design, Primrose. Elle is modeling Primrose with the skirt (Violette) and scarf I gave you last year.
Primrose is knit from the top down, in the round, with modified boat neck, and blousy full sleeves. She is a nice compliment to Violette's fitted silhouette. The sleeve cuffs and body are finished with a garter stitch border that mirror the neckline. I used Knitpicks Gloss yarn- it was a dream to work with.
My goal is to get the patterns for both Primrose and Violette polished up and available before the end of January.

I feel like my after Christmas knitting list (which is mostly selfish knitting) is almost as long as my Christmas knit list. I still need to make some fingerless mitts for myself and finish projects already started. In the Village Yarn shop, I was inspired to use leftover fingering weight yarns to make this scarf. I did some desperately needed stash purging and re-organization last week and made some scarf  kits for myself. I finished this narrow scarf in the wee hours of this morning.

It is about 3 inches wide and 60 inches long. Just right for wearing like this:


And you know what the REALLY good thing about this pattern and its use of leftovers? Chances are pretty good that there is a sweater made out of one of those yarns and the scarf is guaranteed to go with something.  See what I mean?


After re-organizing my yarn stash and finding yarn I forgot I had, I faced the cold hard truth of my yarn gluttony. I have more than enough to knit myself well into next year and vow to clear much of it ( notice I am being realistic here and not saying ALL of it) off my shelves before bringing any new yarn home. I failed on last years Sock-a-Week resolution, so there is still plenty of sock yarn waiting for me, too. Maybe a more realistic goal this year would be a pair of socks each month. Maybe I should pick a sock yarn and put it in a brown paper bag, assign a month to each bag and surprise myself. Yeah. I think that is exactly what I am going to do. So maybe this year it will be a scarf and a pair of socks each month along with the big projects I would like to work on too. Sounds like a plan.
Love,
Kim


4 comments:

Liz said...

I'm in love with that scarf Kim, fabulous. Wish I could knit properly...sigh!! Hope your Christmas was great..
Lizzie
xxx

dls said...

The scarf and red hair are to die for..... :)

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous all the way down! Sweater is BEAUTIFUL! Love the pattern, love the color!

Teresa said...

Wow, wow, wow. It's all so beautiful! I knitted a scarf once, and each time I did a row it had a different number of stitches in it. How did that happen? Pathetic, yes? It was fun though and I made it with the stretchy and very fuzzy yarn, so many of it's issues were hidden. Or at least that's what I tell myself.
Your work is absolutely gorgeous.