Winners All Around

Edited to Add: I have an Ebay listing for more fantastic yarn from my stash!! It's going fast. 

Click here! Click here! Click here!

Hi, Knitters,

The winner of the Mary Jane Mucklestone Muckle Toque pattern and 150 Scandinavian Motifs book is.....

jillpickle (rav id)!

Congratulations to jillpickle! Thank you to everyone for entering. What a great response for Mary Jane's book and pattern. I'll have another giveaway very soon.

The winner of successful knitting for a 20 year-old son is..... me! I'm just kidding about the winning but I really do feel like a winner of some sort. Knitting for men is tricky at times, at least for me. Not the hats so much but sweaters are difficult to gauge as far as size goes. I'm way out of my league. 

First, here is the information about the sweater:

Pattern: Chesterfield by Julie Hoover

Yarn: Donegal Tweed by Tahki

I had a sweater's amount for me of the gray tweed and a skein of the natural. I just added on and ordered a few extra skeins in gray and one more of the natural tweed so I was sure to have enough. 

As I worked I was so concerned that the sweater was too big. I had taken my son's measurements and I had a sweater that he likes to compare for size as I knit but I still had concerns. When I held up the sweater while it was on the needles and then off, it seemed enormous. 

I tried to remain confident until he tried it on but doubts were definitely creeping in. It was so much knitting and I was not looking forward to ripping it out to fix the size but I would have if needed.

In the end, no worry was needed because it fits exactly as planned and better yet he just loves it! Isn't it great? The sweater is designed to have a very relaxed 4-5 inches of positive ease and that is exactly how it fits him. I think the sleeves are a little long but he likes them that way and won't let me shorten them. I guess when you are walking around on campus in the winter in Minnesota you can use extra length on your sleeves. I get that.

He has been wearing the sweater non-stop since Christmas which makes me feel so good. It has been bitter cold outside and this has been the perfect gift for the cold winter season. 

He wanted to hold a piece of bread in the photo. He even took a bite out of it for the photo. I don't know.... he is funny and always entertaining to say the least.

Right before Christmas I decided to whip him up this new hat as well. He loves the new hat just as much as the new sweater and the hat has rarely left his head since Christmas. This is good because someone around here really needs a shave and a haircut two bits (sorry, couldn't resist). Don't even ask about the mustache.... 

What are you going to do but laugh. This one likes to experiment with hair. You just never know what's going to walk through that door. It's pretty funny actually and I really don't mind. I'm always just happy to have him home whatever the state of his hair.

Hat information:

Windschief by Stephen West  I knit it longer by an inch or two than the pattern recommends before the decreases. There is no way it would have been long enough otherwise. For men's hats I always go to at least 7-inches from the cast on edge before starting to decrease for the crown. That's my rule of thumb.

Yarn: Sunshine Yarns Worsted   I can't remember the color name and can't find the tag. This is wonderful yarn! I can't recommend it highly enough.

Cozy guy! Goofball, too.

What fun to succeed at this man-size knit! I don't know if you remember but a few years ago I started knitting another sweater for this son, he's been asking for awhile. It was too small. I discovered the size problem after finishing the back and part of the front. I was pretty discouraged and didn't try again until this fall.

The second time's a charm. Hooray for winning!

I hope you are staying warm. The high here on Monday is supposed to be 14 degrees below zero and that's the temperature without windchill. It will feel even colder. Yeah. That's even hard for me to take and I love winter. It will pass. Oh, and I just got an email that the schools are closed on Monday due to extreme cold weather and possibly on Tuesday as well. 

Another win is extended vacation for my girls! We still have vacation stuff left to do so we'll take an extra day or two. We won!

Take care of yourselves out there and let's knit the cold away together.

best, susie