Category: Newly Finished Knit Projects

Late last night, I finished up my Paint By Numbers hat.

I love knitting fairisle hats.  They are so much fun and not nearly as difficult as they look.  I'm particularly happy with the colors in this one, which I plan on wearing later this week in Seattle, where it will hopefully be cool enough to do so.  Knitting a wool hat is a bit of an act of faith when you live somewhere with temperatures still well above 90` as September draws to an end. 

A neighbor, who typically knows about such things, told me while out walking his dog last night that he had heard we were going to have a very cold winter.  He didn't seem to happy about it, but, such music to a knitter's ears!

I love cashmere.  Always have, always will.  And, I love knitting with it. Good cashmere is liking having butter slipping through your fingers.

So it was a pleasure to knit Oak Park in The Plucky Knitter's aran cashmere yarn, Cachet.  Oak Park is a triangular shawl, knit from the bottom up.  This means that it moves very quickly at the end and the last several pattern repeats move so quickly that it's done and off the needles before you realize it.

Knit in the pattern yarn, it's a pretty, full size shawl that has enough heft to keep you warm on a cool night.  But it also wraps around your neck nicely and has enough drape to be worn as a scarf.

Although it takes a repeat through to see the pattern evolving, it's not a difficult knit.  I did end up marking off each pattern repeat of 16 stitches with markers so I could catch any mistakes quickly.  But the pattern is easy to memorize and made for pleasant car knitting, not something you can't carry on a conversation while knitting.  This is probably not a pattern for a new knitter unless you are quite brave and adventurous, but it's pretty enough that if you love it, you should go for it.  Amy Miller, the designer, has her own Ravelry group and there is lots of support and advice there for those knitting this pattern.

This shawl will always be extra special for me, as I knit a good bit of it while on our family vacation in Glacier National Park.  I carried it in my backpack on hikes, knit it at waterfalls, and brought it out (pictured above), when we emerged from hiking into the splendor of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton, Canada for tea.

It's an exciting day for me as a knitter.  I knit a sweater in just over two months and it fits.  It even looks good.  I wore it out to dinner tonight!  Like so many of us, I struggle with never-enough-time-to-knit and not always being able to translate a pattern into something that fits well and looks good.  I feel like I've made a lot of progress in the last couple of years and I'm really happy with this one.

This is Mithril.  It's knit in my own yarn, Elliebelly Chemise, a silk linen blend in a sport weight. I used five skeins, down to the last little bit.  But, if I had followed the length suggested in the pattern, I could have done it in four.  I opted for a longer, tunic style.  This little twist is all of the yarn I had leftover.  So happy to have a win at yarn chicken!

The pattern is well-written and very straightforward.  Mithril is a sweater a beginner could knit, but the sweet cable detailing was enough to give me something to look forward to and keep knitting despite the miles of stockinette.

This is the perfect "wear it with everything sweater."  I had it on tonight with a long, white silk skirt but it looks equally good with jeans and leggings.  I like it enough that I would consider knitting a winter wool version, possibly with a higher neckline.

This sweater is so comfortable that I really don't want to take it off — in fact, as you can see, I've already gotten one good nap in while wearing it.  It feels great to have knit something I know I will wear over and over.  The original idea for this sweater came about because I had a similar white linen sweater, minus the cables, that I had worn since college and it finally wore out.  I'm guessing this one will last as long as the original.  Linen wears like iron and even with a gentle steam blocking, the fiber has already softened and opened up. 

The original yarn was very pretty, but I'm even happier with the finished sweater.  It's good to be a knitter.

To recap, I walked into my Local Yarn Store (a dangerous thing to do at the best of times, which this was not) several weeks ago, and promptly fell in love with local designer Jamie Thomas's Vested Interest pattern, knit in Quince & Co's linen tape yarn, Kestrel.  I had to knit it immediately.  I walked out with four skeins, went back for two more several days later and last night, two weeks in, and with some very casual, intermittent knitting, had this lovely finished object.

I'm in love with it!  It looks great with everything I've tried it on with from jeans to a long skirt and it feels great (and hides parts of me I prefer to keep hidden in the back).  It's a wonderful, undemanding, quick summer knit with great style.  Thanks Jamie!

Although I'm typically more comfortable knitting with lighter weight yarns, I'm drawn to bulky weights again and again because I like the finished items.  And there is a certain satisfying feeling to a quick knit.

This pattern, Little Church Knit's Big Island Wrapper really fits that bill.  First, full disclosure, it's a free pattern so you have to be willing to do some work on your own, but most everyone who has knit it has left behind pattern notes, and you won't have any trouble if you take a quick look through them and make some decisions before starting.

This is a great knit that you can easily pull off in a week, or even a more determined weekend.  And although I had some concerns about the picot edging (the pointy bits) in a bulky weight yarn, even that part turned out just fine with a little gentle blocking.  I laid the shawl out wet and smoothed it carefully, no pins.  The result is really lovely.