Knitting Season Comes Early

It's here!!!!!   ⛄⛄⛄⛄⛄😩 I'm not ready!  My Japanese Maple wasn't ready either.....
it seems to be holding onto its leaves just to spite the weather Gods!  I love the defiance!

When the snow shows up the knitting needles come out.  I love sitting and watching the snow from the coziness of my living room.  (not so happy about going out and struggling through it!)  I make a fire, a cup of tea, and snuggle in and knitting just seems to be the thing to do.

I have been learning a new cast on.  I have been using a 'long tail' cast on since I started knitting...I didn't even really know there were actually dozens of cast ons that I could be doing.  A knitting friend showed me her new favorite book and I was smitten! 

I went right to Amazon and got my own copy (delivered super speedy the next day!)  It has all kinds of great cast ons AND bind offs, again, I never knew!  The instructions are great and accompanied by very clear photos.  And if I get really stuck I just head over to You Tube and somebody has made a video.  I am having fun!


The project I am working on right now is a 'left overs' project.  I have several different yarns all not quite enough for anything on their own, but gang them all up and BAM, a sweater....I hope! 

There is a lovely alpaca yarn that was hand spun by a friend for my birthday.  It is kind of a dark caramel color.  Then there are a few balls of a grey alpaca, no clue when or how they ended up in my stash.  And to make up the yardage, a couple of balls of black alpaca.  I must have been on an alpaca kick at some point. 

I really loved my recent project (here) that was worked in one by one stripes in the round.  I thought the caramel and grey alpaca would look super together.  I started with a tubular cast on, 😝in black and then started knitting stripes.  It sounds so easy when I say it like that.  Actually, I think I wore out the yarn knitting and un-knitting it to get the cast on right!!!!  I finally think I have it and when it's right, it looks simply marvelous and it is really stretchy!

I have no idea if I have enough yarn to get an entire sweater, I may be back scrounging in my stash for yet another orphaned alpaca before it's all said and done.  For now, I am enjoying the stripes.

I did finish a couple of knitting projects in time for "sweater weather."  Again, both of them are alpaca!  I guess I'm just a sucker for the soft, soft softness of the little critters.  The first project is a sweater that I actually followed a pattern! 😳  Yes, I downloaded a pattern from Ravelry and followed the instructions as written...mostly!😏  You can see the pattern HERE.  It's called Clara and it was the really cool bands that I fell in love with when I saw it.  (and the slouchy, oversized fit, and the fact that it goes down in the back over the tush....well, you know, pretty much everything about it!)  The whole thing is knitted or picked up and knit so when you get to the end you are done!  I love that!  And I love my sweater.  It is as cozy as the critters that donated the fiber!

                     

(my attempt at and 'arty' sweater photo...)

The second project is one that I saw at my local yarn haunt and the only way I could get the yarn was to buy the 'kit'...so I bought the kit.  It was a ball of green/black alpaca (of course) and a pattern for a darned cute floppy hat.  

I tried out my new favorite tubular cast on, and I only had to do it twice!  Progress!  The hat was very straight forward, but it was knit on size 3, yes you heard that right, size 3 needles!  Yikes!  It was like knitting with toothpicks!  But the resulting hat is wonderful!  It is light weight and really warm.  A new favorite for sure.  And it looks stunning with the Wingspan scarf I knit a few years ago.

           

So knitting season is off and running.  I usually run out of steam just before I finish the second sleeve, so we'll see how it goes.  Maybe since we got our first dump of snow on Halloween!!!!#%*^# the knitting season will be extended this year and I'll get all the way through a whole sweater!