The last few months of 2012 were difficult on many levels that I won’t go into here. Things are still in a state of flux, but there is reason to think that better times are coming, but keep your fingers crossed for me for a bit, at least while you aren’t knitting or spinning. The last knitting project of the year was a resounding success, and I’ll get to that in a minute, but I did also have two flops.<\/p>\n
I had started a blue cowl in the round on two circs to go with my new red coat. I thought the needles were the same size; I had checked them on my needle gauge. But they were two different sizes, so things weren’t turning out very well. Also turned out that I don’t have two circs of the right size. Frog.<\/p>\n
Then I finished my vodka lemonade cardigan in the star sapphire BFL sport. I tried it on several times while knitting it top-down. All seemed to be going well. I even had a washed swatch for stitch and row gauge, and that looked good. Well, the finished sweater fits terribly; the sweater blocked oppositely to the swatch, growing rather than tightening up in gauge.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n I haven’t woven in the ends because I think I may rip the whole thing some day and knit a different pattern. I’ve knit top-down before with success, but here, nothing lay or hung right.<\/p>\n But I did have success knitting my brother a hat for Christmas!
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\nMom is wearing the shawl-collared cowl I knit for her last year, which I never photographed or blogged about, and Thomas is wearing his new hat. The pattern is The Natural<\/a> by Homero Luna. It’s a free pattern on Ravelry. I knit it out of some Wool of the Andes. I did one extra repeat because I tried it on M, and it wouldn’t have fit M as a beanie as written. Apparently, it would have fit Thomas, because the extra repeat adds a bit of slouch for him, which he likes.
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\nThere was a lot of snow in Wisconsin over the holidays!
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\nHe even wears the hat in public. Here Thomas is making sure Mom buys the right kind of OJ.
\n2013 is looking better on the knitting front so far.
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\nI’m 90% done with a Manaan cowl<\/a> in some Vintage Madelinetosh. The color is fathom, and it is a great semi-solid mix of royal and navy. Let’s hope it behaves!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"