A Knitting Catch-Up

Despite the last two posts about sewing projects, I really have been doing much more knitting lately. I'm definitely hooked!
Just in time for the real cold weather to begin, I finished (mostly, kinda) my winter set. I finished the hat long ago but I had bought two more hanks of the Sheep Shop Sheep 1 yarn to make a scarf and mittens to match.


For a scarf I decided to go with a neckwarmer. First, I found a great pattern by the owner of Loop, my favorite local yarn store. It the Herringbone neckwarmer and it's a free pattern. Second, a neckwarmer is a heck of a lot faster to make than a scarf! I think mine is about 26" long while a scarf would be at least 48". The pattern is just 2 lines, but looks amazingly confusing in print. Actually trying it with your needles and yarn works much better and in the end it was a really fun and fat project! I love how thick and squishy the finished fabric is.
Raveled here


And then there are the mittens. My first mittens.
As happy as I am with the neckwarmer, I'm the opposite with these mittens. They do not fit in several ways -- too loose in the palm, thumb starts too late, too short at the fingers, too frumpy and bumpy and lumpy! And to top it all off, my mainly pink and brown yarn got a big pool of GREEN near the top of one of the mitts. I didn't even notice it as I was knitting, I think I was just relieved to be almost done.
I definitely learned quite a bit about what NOT to do, and I plan to frog (knitter-speak for unravel) and redo it in another pattern. So no I'm not posting too many close ups of these!

A few quick works in progress:

I fell head over heels for this adorable cabled hat pattern on KnitPicks.com called the Master Charles. Of course I went out and bought some lovely Malabrigo yarn to make one for each of my boys!


And I always have some sort of lace on the needles as well. This is the Swallowtail Shawl in a stunning yarn I bought from an indie dyer on Etsy. This one will even have some beads, a first for me.