Knitting? Has There Been Knitting?

Oh yes! t]There has been plenty of knitting in the past several weeks. The Knit Sisters and I get together just about every Friday evening and one Saturday a month so that gives me quite a lot of stitching time, although I often have to rip out what I've done when I get home because I'm so busy gabbing and laughing that I've made a ton of mistakes.  I have managed to pull off a few projectsthough. 

This is a close up of The Peace Cowl I made. I love the stitch pattern. The yarn is some hand-dyed that I won online. It's softer than unborn, baby panda pelts. This project was part of a Knit Along for the first 21 days of December. The idea was to take a few minutes each day in the busy, stressful holiday season to just relax, reflect and knit a couple of rounds; projecting peace to the universe. 

I did it, but it was a little deceiving, what with hundreds of stitches in each round! It took over a half an hour to do the repeat you were supposed to do each day. Plus the first time I cast on, I didn't have enough yarn. The second time, I had enough yarn but I twisted it when I joined it in the round and had to start over. So the start was a little less that peaceful. But I finished it and even knit a second one directly after out of purple sock yarn I had in my stash. This one went to Aunt Gail in Ohio!

I knit some Owl mittens from Jorid Linvik's Big book of Mittens. I love the baby owl on the thumb! Stranded knitting on small needles gives me wicked hand cramps I've discovered. Guess I'll have to do more of it so I can strengthen my hands!

On January 1st I started a 2017 Sky Scarf. Each day I add two rows (the pattern is Mini Bamboo) based on the color of the sky: blue-clear skies, grey is overcast, white is snow, black is rain, tornados will be orange. (Nuclear fallout a beautiful red with sparkles)!  I'm dividing the months with a pink stripe. should be interesting to see how it turns out. This is almost all of January. 

Last week I started and finished Elizabeth Morrison's 'Skating Party' hat. I love the yarn. It comes in a kit from Knit Circus. This gradient colorway is 'Cindy Lou Who'.

It was a fun knit and the finishing-continuing the hat peak with an inch of I-cord and a bobble before binding off- was genius. I only had a little trouble in keeping the pattern together when I was decreasing but fortunately the designer was sitting to my immediate left and graciously helped me out.

It's weird for me to knit so many projects that aren't socks! It was fun to do something a little different over the holidays! Knitting has slowed down for now beacuse I am having some skin rash issues on my hands, making yarn tension painful, but as soon as that is under control, I'm back in the saddle! Knit on!