Projects

Hat for the Mister's Birthday



I ended up ripping out the socks I was planning on making for him. I decided to tinker with the pattern and ended up rendering it impossible to deal with, so I quick-fast knit him a hat instead. I bought this wool on our camping trip to Mille Lacs in the spring and it was fun to work with. The color are natural and the yarn was sort of roughly spun, with little ares of unspun or overspun yarn, which would annoy the crap out of me in a bigger garment, but I found really charming in this little hat.

Pattern: Tychus
Yarn: heavy worsted weight from The Tinshack Co.
Needles: US size 8, bamboo straights

Shawl for MJ


(Charlie included for scale, and because he wouldn't got off the couch) (Edited to add: blogger crops pictures strangely, so it turns out that a couple of Charlie's feet are included in this shot and his whole body is included on the full size version)



My darling friend MJ moved to International Falls for a job. While I am delighted she got this great job, where they're already using her brilliance, close to her family and in a part of the state she loves, I am very sad that she won't be close by any more. Our pad thai lunches will be so much harder to schedule now that there's a several hour commute separating us.

I had been wracking my brain for something to give her as a going-away present. And I landed on this. There are patterns in knitting for prayer shawls. While I didn't pray as I knit this shawl (other than Please, God, let me find that dropped stitch) I did think about our friendship and all the things we've done together and been through together and of all my good wishes and happy thoughts for her future. I hope she can cuddle up in it, way up there in the hinterlands, and remember that I love her.

Pattern: Icarus from the Best of Interweave Knits
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed, 4 skeins and a little bit of the 5th
Needles: Addi Lace US size 8

Patio!

It's not all the way done, since we ran out of bricks and still need to do the edging and put new grass seed around it, but most of the work is done and I love it!