busy winter

This (free) pattern is absolutely stunning; I could not resist it. My Revontuli shawl was the 400th Revontuli on Ravelry at the time I finished it (there are now 585), and the first one to use deliberate stripes (rather than take advantage of long repeat-striping yarn). The palette is perfect happenstance: the lady godiva "Bronze" has a series of colors I personally love to DEATH, but knit alone I found the variegation a little muddy (I like what I did with alternate stitches and modular-like knitting in my project with the cushions, but it was partly a blue-er colorway, Glacier, and it was cushions. I wanted to knit something to wear with the rest of that yarn because it's so soft and glorious). The undyed natural "honey" colorway of the alpaca-silk blend was somehow the perfect match, and the thin stripes IMO allow the extraordinary colors to really come through. It's muted, but really luxurious and pretty up close (two people IRL told me they find it a little boring and too muted, but whatever, they're wrong wrong wrong!).

Then there's my Squishy, aka the 'Reading Shawl' by Danielle Landes, which I knit in two days to use up the rest of the Coproca alpaca (still doubled up). I dispensed with the lace edging, but I'm very pleased with the tiny colorful Kureyon border; it gives it interest and character. The shape of this shawl allows it to stay put on the shoulders, which is great, and it's so soft that I've been keeping it close to fondle it a lot. Another happy project!

Still not sick of garter stitch, I also knit another small shawl, using what was left of my Evilla pre-yarn. I don't have any FO pictures, but the Ravelry project page has a few in-progress shots. I called it Smokey because the deep colors and the pre-yarn texture gave me the impression I was knitting alternately with ink and with smoke. Wonderful.

And finally, my first 'serious' lace project, the Shetland Triangle by Evelyn A. Clark. I knit it in Zephyr Jaggerspun, a wool-silk laceweight I held double, and made it a present to Mom for her birthday:

- Two hats.

First, a Vortex hat I called 'citrus vortex', from this great Knitty pattern by Lee Meredith:

Knit for my best friend in Paris who went through half this particularly cold winter (for Paris) without a hat... I love the look, but the mohair blend I used is a little thinner than the noro, resulting in a lightweight cap that's very .. beanie like, very close to the skull. My Mom thinks it looks better on her, who has cropped hair, than on me with my hair escaping from it because it's longer.. But the pictures my friend sent back showed it suits her well, and she loved it, which is the most important thing!

I think I might try to knit it again in an Aran weight, some time, and see if it's more 'hat like' when more rugged and thick. It's a great pattern.

Second, a ridged 'noro hat' in black fingering alpaca from Coproca (yarn held double) for a guy friend of mine. He llked my colorful Kureyon version and needs to keep his kead warm too, but he wanted something discreet enough that he won't be conspicuous when participating in various protest marches (he is very politically active). I did not take a picture of the FO before sending him the hat, but no doubt I'll be able to take an action shot soon.

- One blanket - or one more shawl, depending: I finally knit a Pi Shawl from the wonderful EZ pattern! I used Evilla pre-yarn, approximately 160g, and chose really big needles for the yarn at 5.5mm. It covered the table in its unblocked state:

And it grew a little, so that it now has a diameter of about 160cm. It is light as air and superwarm! I started it thinking 'at least I'll have a mindless project I can knit on slowly' but, then I made the mistake of being monogamous with it: in just a short few days I was increasing to the 576 stitches row...

I thought I'd use only the purple-black wheel of preyarn, but in the end I didn't have enough - I dippêd into the second wheel for the border, hoping the blue-ish tint wouldn' scream too badly next to the blackberry shades (then I decided to keep knitting that blue wheel, and knit the Smokey shawlette).

It was a really fun project, though I think I might like it better in one shade allover ala Jared. (you can see from the pictures that I knit that same variant, the yarnovers one. No fancy lace there).

- one scarf:

Two weeks ago I went to the luxury yarn shop in town (Elle Tricote) and could not resist one of the store models, the Toscane (Tuscany) scarf knit with two alternating colorways of Noro Flower bed. The scarf is now finished and blocking, no pictures of the FO proper but here's a view of the halfway point:

Well, that's it for the FOs! Next time, a peek at the projects, which are also many.