Hi, Knitters,
Welcome to March! The winner of the Knitcircus gradient sock yarn is.....
Gina or greencashmere on Ravelry!
Congratulations to Gina. I'll have another giveaway very soon. What an incredible response to the giveaways lately. Thank you all for your participation. Thank you to Jaala for giving us the yarn.
I am getting back in action after a huge yarn sale I had over the weekend. I posted about it on my Facebook, Twitter, my Ravelry group and Instagram. I post a lot on these different venues so if you are interested in keeping up please join me.
The yarn sale was a huge hit. I have so much fun putting these sales together. This was my second yarn sale on eBay. I made lots and lots of Magic Cakes in fingering and worsted weight sets with matching pom-poms. Those were literally all snapped up within minutes. I also had a bunch of stash yarns that I sold. That felt great. I threw in some little extra goodies in the boxes and envelopes before sealing them up. My son helped me pack and label the packages. We have fun together and he is an organizational master so I love his input. I dropped the packages off at the post office today. It is a lot of work but well worth it in the end.
Thank you, everyone, for the fantastic response. I am always surprised by you! You make everything so much fun.
You can follow me on eBay I guess and then you'll know when I have another yarn sale. I see I have followers on eBay. I think followers might be notified of updates. I will be doing more Magic Cakes as soon as I get a chance. Click here to go to my eBay shop, yarnsale.
Onto some knitting now! In the first photo you can see that I have pulled out the Hiro sweater I started quite awhile ago. I finished the body and am starting on the sleeves. Hopefully I'll get those done quicker so I can finish this one up. I have a lot of sweaters waiting to get on my needles, so, so many and I can't wait. I'm hoping to pick up my sweater knitting pace now. I need some new sweaters and cardigans to wear for sure. My set of go-to handknit sweaters are in need of a refreshing. I'll share as I get to work on the sweater project.
I am using Cascade 220 for my Hiro. Black and turquoise are all I know for now. I'm not sure what the other colors in the yoke will be.... stay tuned. This is an easy worsted weight sweater and cardigan pattern on US size 8s with simple fair isle work, perfect for beginners.
Directly above in the photo is my finished Brickless by Martina Behm. I haven't blocked it yet but I wore it most of yesterday. Oh my gosh, I love it so much. The yarn, the pattern, and the wearing of it are just so much fun. I can't explain why it went so fast and kept my interest but I am pretty sure it is all of the above.
You know, I have to admit that I wasn't sure if I was going to like the finished shawl because it is asymmetrical and that isn't my favorite style but this one I love. Do any of you remember my handspun Hitchhiker by Martina Behm from several years ago that is still not finished? Hitchhiker is the same type of bias-knit asymmetrical style shawl. Well, here it is directly below in the photo. I am a little farther than this photo shows. This pattern is all garter and for some reason it doesn't hold my interest for more than a few minutes at a time.
The Brickless on the other hand held my interest and I was propelled to finish it. I loved knitting Brickless. The finished shawl is super long with long ends and it wraps around my neck wonderfully! It's a winner. Make one! You'll love it!
One of my new favorite video podcasts is called A Homespun House with Molly. Molly is a young mother from Cambridge (just outside of Madison), Wisconsin, now living in Germany with her little family. She has her original knitting family here in Wisconsin and she has continued their crafting traditions. She knits, and sews and does stitchery. Molly is quite talented and she is fun to watch. I hope you'll check out A Homespun House podcast.
Molly has also just opened up a very sweet Etsy shop by the same name, A Homespun House. She is making the sweetest little project bags. I just love her fabric choices and her sewing is quite nice, too. I ordered a couple of her project bags shown in the photo above. I love Heather Ross and her fabrics and gingham. I knew when I saw Molly making bags with some of my favorite Heather fabrics I would have to order her bags. The bags are very well-made. I love it when Molly shares her fabrics on the podcast before they are sewn into bags.
Okay, I'm leaving you with this gorgeous new skein of sock yarn that showed up on my doorstep today. This photo has not been filtered or altered in any way. Can you believe those colors? I ran across this Etsy shop called Quaere after I heard about it on a podcast. I can't remember which podcast. When I visited the shop I saw this 10 color striping colorway called Patchwork. Hmmmmm.... more Patchwork Socks? Yup, I had to get it. Quaere has beautiful yarns. You might like some, too.
That's all for today. I hope you are doing well in this new month of March. Do you have signs of spring? We don't and when it's still below zero in March it feels like spring may never come. This year's winter has been long, hard and cold and I am getting anxious for spring.
best, susie