I’m back knitting again, after several years of mainly sewing (with a side order of crochet).
This feels lovely!
Let me tell you about what I’ve been making.
It started with a hat I made as a Christmas present for my mother. I based it on one I bought for her in New Zealand in 2019, which in turn is the cousin of one the hozz got me on the same trip.
This is a great hat. Some other time, I may hold you with my glittering eye and tell you even more than you expect about the New Zealand merino/possum yarn it’s made from, and about how the construction is quite interesting actually — for instance, it’s double-layered throughout, which, combined with the singular properties of possum fur, makes it very snug indeed.
For today, however, I’ll spare you.
Anyway, my mother went to Scotland last October. When she came home she looked for her hat, and there it was, gone. So I made her a new one (in Malabrigo Rios (Hollyhock), for anyone keeping track). It’s not precisely the same, but it does share the double-layered construction, so it’s a pretty solid winter hat.
I’d forgotten how incredibly thirst-quenching it feels to have a knitting project on the go. So once that first hat was finished, I wound up a skein of fancy yarn, went on Ravelry, and cast on a little lace shawl.
Excuse the late-night indoor photo. The one below is much closer to the real colour.
Actually it’s billed as a shawlette, which always makes me sing the Everly Brothers, “pretty little pet, shawlette” … considerably less queasy than the real lyrics of the song, if you ask me.
Pattern is Liliiflora Shawlette by Lily Go; yarn is Apple Oak Fibreworks Turin in the colour Fire Song. Despite the design featuring nupps — a technique that in my view merits both an argh and a gah — making that shawlette really brought the knitting mojo surging back. I therefore immediately knocked out another one.
(Pattern is Thalia by Kirsten Kapur; yarn is Apple Oak Fibreworks Yeti in a colour called Blood Moon that doesn’t seem to be on the website any more.)
I feel I should tell you, somewhat sheepishly, that these two pieces are still waiting to be blocked, because blocking is boring (a fact that is much more comprehensible to me now that I know about my ADHD).
All of the dyes used in my last three projects have been surprisingly stainy, and made my right hand look like the shot in the medical drama that comes right before the poignant amputation scene.
Two lace projects in a row feels like enough lace for a while, though, so I’m now knitting myself a second version of the Kiwi hat. I couldn’t resist adding a twist to the ribbing this time round.
This is more Malabrigo Rios, in Purple Mystery this time. Should be finished just in time for no-hat season…
PS: In January, my mother went swimming for the first time in a few months. And when she unzipped the side pocket of her swimming bag, what do you think she found? Was it her lost New Zealand merino/possum hat? Why yes, it was! The prodigal hat, returned! Time to kill the fatted scarf.
So now she has two. Happy ending.