Slave to the Needles

Hatz

I got a wild hair and knit up a Monmouth Cap out of Reynolds Lopi.  I loves it (picture soon). I'm cranking out a 3/2 rib baby alpaca beanie for Airplane Guy, too, and then I'm going to start work in earnest on the 13th C. cushion I've been jonesing for.  I'm hoping I can get gauge on the 000 circs I just bought, but I'm not entirely optimistic.  We'll see, though.  A friend said that a lot of people knit smaller when they're stranding colors.

She Lives!

Wow.  The end of the year got a little crazy, there.  I was scarcely knitting at all for quite some time.  Thank god for a week's vacation and a bunch of hockey. 

So, when you left our intrepid knitter, she had finished a cowl.  Since then, the following has occurred:

I finished up one of the Cashmerino baby hats I had lying around and gave it to Sadie.  It is unbelievably cute on her.  Disgustingly cute, even.  But it fits, which is the most important thing.

I finished a baby kimono for D & S's new little girl, Mallory.  Baby alpaca (ZOMG! I *heart* this yarn!) from Knitpicks in the pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting.  Went together like a dream.  I hope she can wear it for more than half an hour, 'cause it's TINY.

In October, I went to Scotland for a week, and met up with some old friends and their new family.  Of course that meant that I had to knit stuff up to give them, like Alex's scarf (some nice Merino from my LYS in a cool pyramid pattern - to the left, there),


Darren's Men's (not so) Cashmere Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts,



a frilly hat for Tatjana and



a nice striped beanie for Milan.





'Course, Darren just told me that they're moving back to Australia, so won't have much in the way of need for warm, woolen things, but ::shrug::

I also tried my hand at knitting with cotton.  I managed to complete the Moss Grid Hand Towel from Mason-Dixon Knitting, with enough yarn left over to make a matching wash cloth.  I'm mostly pleased wtih the result, but I don't think I'll do that particular pattern again.

As for ongoing projects, I've got a mental block about finishing the finishing on the little dress (I hates pieces patterns, I does), but need to get on that since the baby's due pretty soon. I started a quilt square for Mallory but didn't finish it in time, so it will probably become a pillow. I also tried to come up with something out of a minty bouclé yarn, but was thwarted, like, 50 times.  We'll see what comes of that. And this break from work has brought me a bunch of time to make some headway on my Ariann sweater (one sleeve down, about 1/3 of the other completed at this writing).  I also just bid on ANOTHER kit (to add to the lovely ivory kit I won a couple of months ago). This one is a beautiful heathery purple - I'll probably make something for Ma out of it since I look like barf in that color, but we'll see.

I'm not much for New Year's Resolutions, but I do intend to stay on top of knitblogging a bit better, because I intend to stay on top of knitting a bit better.  There was a severe rift in the Work/Life Balance towards the end of last year that I hope not to repeat, and working from home a lot ate into my commute knitting time.  But you know what they say about the Road to Hell...