Also, I'm apparently knitting my cat directly into this sweater. She wouldn't move, so I just put the neck opening around her and kept going.
(Update, I did get nervous enough to try the sweater on myself, and not just the cat. I think it fits just right!)
Speaking of that lace shawl. I've wanted some kind of wrap that I can wear to dressy events for some time. For those things where a cardigan just doesn't feel appropriate, I've taken to carrying an old black scarf that passes as a wrap. My knitted shawl just didn't feel dressy enough. I guess the weight, either sport or DK, just seemed too casual to wrap over a formal dress. So I got it in my head that a simple, light, lace wrap would be just perfect for the wedding I was standing up in. On New Year's Eve. I decided this officially on December 16. The woman at the yarn store sort of laughed at me when I mentioned my intention. I stubbornly thought, whatever, I can totally do this, work full(ish) time AND get ready for Christmas. Sure I can. I went home that day, found a pattern on Ravelry that suited what I was going for, and recklessly cast on. I did the math, and figured that if I knit 3.5" per day, I could do it. And I did. I knit during all available free time - in the car, in the "wellness" room, at a bar, in the movies, getting a pedicure. I blocked that baby at 1:30 am the morning of the wedding, and wore it for about an hour. I knew that would be the case, that I wouldn't be wearing it all night, and this whole effort was probably silly. It was still good though. While this won't be something I wear on the daily, it's nice to know I have it now, for the next event.
I also knit a 2 color triangular shawl. I think I like it, but I'm not sure. I bought the unlabeled yarn from a sale bin at stitches in 2013, and intended for it to go together in a shawl, but didn't actively notice that it's not the softest thing. It's not bad, but this was before I had a malabrigo shawl, which is positively delightful, so maybe it's not a fair comparison. I started knitting the dream stripes shawl, which has you work both colors in 2 row stripes. This means that both colors are carried up the same side, which, in my work, made one side much, much tighter than the other and the whole thing was really wonky. So I ripped it out. I started again, with one color being carried up each side, and the whole endeavor was much more successful. I would knit across with one color and purl back, then I would slide all the stitches on my circular needle back to the other end and purl across with the second color. From there I would turn the work and knit with the second color, and perform the stitch slide back to the beginning and knit with the first color and so on and so forth. I knit up until I had about 1/4 of the gray ball left, as I intended to do the lace edging in that color. I found the lace chart was either not correct, or my knitting was not correct, because I kept having an incorrect number of stitches when I would come to the last repeat. I decided that I was too sick of this project to figure out the problem, and that no one would ever notice anyway, especially since the first and last repeat are different than those in the center, and I just fudged it. In the end, it looks pretty nice and is a good addition to my collection of 3 shawls (the others are the Quaker Ridge by Susan B Anderson and the aforementioned laceweight wrap), though the edging could use a little more steam to control the curling.
I jumped on board the Wee Envelope by Ysolda Teague bandwagon, and tore through it in less than a week. I made the 6-12 mo size, but wish I'd gone up a size as it seems pretty narrow. I think I added a little length on the body, but I can't remember. I got the pretty pink yarn at Wisconsin Sheep and Wool this summer, and it was lovely to knit with. Like everyone, I did mess up the envelope neckline and had to knit the part where it attaches on each side twice, but it really is very clever when you figure it out. I did make the buttonholes, but never did end up adding the buttons. It stays closed nicely without them, and they are just one more thing to fiddle with.
I finished 2 more pairs of socks for myself, bringing my #operationsockdrawer total to 6. I've been loving it, and wearing a pair almost every day. I'm disappointed when I don't have any clean ones! One pair was plain vanilla in a self striping Opal, and the other was a sport weight in a solid color opal, knit in the Adjoin pattern from Sock Architecture.
As seen in that photo, I've also been working on my sock yarn blanket. I'm up to a 6x6 square now, and I like how it looks. Other than all the ends I have yet to weave in. That will be my next step before I move on to a new row, now that it's a nice clean square.
As for socks, now that I've been wearing them frequently, I think I'm knitting them a bit too large. I went down to 56 stitches on size 2 needles for my sport weight pair, and that's fitting pretty well. I also made them a bit shorter in the foot than was my instinct, and I'm liking that as well. My other socks mostly fit well right off the needles, but are a touch loose after a day of wear. I think I'll go down to 60 stitches from 64 on size 1 for my next fingering weight pair and see how that goes. I have a pair of kids tube socks on my size 1's right now, in specially requested "sparkly yarn." I'm just past where the heel would be if I was knitting one, so I'm going to start doing the 3x1 rib all the way around now instead of just on the top of the foot. I did a round toe on these and quite like it, though I wonder if it comes to too narrow of a point. I opted for round so that it wouldn't matter if it was put on slightly crooked, so that benefit may be worth it. I'd like to finish in another week or so. I feel so slow when I hear some podcasters say they've knit FORTY pair of socks in 2015. And this isn't an exclusive sock knitter, and she does have a full time job. I know she doesn't have kids, but still. That's a huge amount.
Finally, I think the only other thing I made is a little pair of thumbless mittens for a certain baby who doesn't like her hands covered! I held some leftover Knitpicks self striping sock yarn doubled and it worked out really well. We've only used them a couple of times, but I was definitely glad that I had them those few times. They only took 2 days, and it was time well spent in my opinion!
Just for fun, my finished knitting (and crochet) round up for 2015 is as follows:
6 hats
2 pairs of gloves/mittens
3 shawls
1 blanket
3 pairs of socks
3 sweaters
1 cowl
As a rough estimate, since I wasn't great about entering exact yardage for each project, this means that I went through 7,380 yards of yarn last year! That's just over 4 miles. Whoa!
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