february marches on

and becomes march - the month!!


before i can salute the new month, i must backtrack and recap february and my knitting adventures. 


i'm still on track with my new year's resolutions, believe it or not! i'm probably the most skeptical person regarding this issue as my ability to stay on track has regressed over the years - i'm blaming it on the drugs. no, not THOSE drugs but the prescription statin that i take for high cholesterol - new tests find that it may impair memory. oh, great! apparently you are damned if you do and damned if you don't - take the drug and lose your memory or don't take the drug and die of a heart attack - life's a crap shoot, i tell ya!!


i digress! back to the topic at hand. february yielded a scarf

evelyn clark's swallowtail lace shawl

knit on size 4 needles with knit picks 'shimmer' in the colorway: flower garden. the yarn is a lovely combination of 70% baby alpaca and 30% silk in a lace weight. the finished shawl is a robust 60 inches across by 28 inches long - much larger than i had anticipated. i knit this shawl in the past out of malabrigo lace which yielded a much smaller piece. that is what i thought i would get this time so i was very pleased when i blocked it and discovered the difference.

i gave the nupps the ol' college try but they just didn't cut it - too wimpy- so i used beads instead. much better option as it adds a delightful surprise to the mix! 


i am very happy with the way this shawl turned out and very happy to have it done and very happy to have made a minuscule dent in my lace stash!!


and the beat goes on: socks of the month!


remember brach's candies? i do! they were some of the first bin foods found in supermarkets way back when!! and i do mean way back when!! i always felt like i was soooooo special when my mom would let me get a small bag full of the white nougats - you remember those, don't you? they were white with flecks of colored fruit! yum!!

there were also the coconut numbers that were the exact colors of these socks. those weren't as high on my list but i did love that pink and brown color combo!

this yarn has been languishing in my stash for many moons - like years and years! it is trekking xxl, knit on size 1 double points. the pattern is from the book by wendy d. johnson 'socks from the toe up'. it is a plain vanilla toe-up sock with a gusset heel. my first go at this heel and i really enjoyed it! indeed, i will do it again!

i had intended to do some patterning in the leg but decided that it was futile since it was lost with this self-striping yarn so plain vanilla it is and was - topped it off with an inch of k2,p2 and a very loose bind-off. once again, amazing for me!

i also pounded out a sweater - 'yoked cardigan' by hannah fettig.

i reclaimed this yarn from a previously knit sweater and i can tell you, it is much better this go round! i have no idea who made this yarn or its fiber content but it is a lovely combination of warm and cool shades of gray with a fleck of gold metallic running throughout which is difficult to ascertain from these photos.

this is a top-down one-piece sweater with no seams to sew - my favorite type of knit! i'm also taken with the swing jacket sense it possesses. the pattern is well-written and comes in a wide range of sizes from newborn to adult. i would recommend this pattern to a novice knitter that wants to move beyond the obligatory scarves and hats.

so, that wraps up february. what does march hold? well, for two things - socks and a shawl. i also hope to knock out one last winter sweater of wool before heading into spring and more cotton yarns!!