And So It Begins,

the new year, that is.

New Year's Day was sunny (an amazing mood lifter) and began auspiciously with a first visit to friends who have recently moved to Madison. We got to see the house, which is charming, and more importantly, their grown children and beautiful new granddaughter. Marty made one of his specialties, split pea soup, which isn't quite Hoppin' John, but I figure it's close enough thematically (legumes & pork) to qualify for New Year's good luck. The ham came from a pig naturally raised not a mile from our house by someone I know. Not good luck for the pig, but a good break from the corporate food distribution system.

I don't usually make resolutions, but this year I'm setting a goal of completing four projects for organizations mentioned in Knitting for Peace that I haven't already contributed to. (Anything I knit for groups I have given to in the past will be gravy.) With a further goal of making said projects with material from the stash.

Today, the second and also sunny day of the year, I swatched some more on the Latvian project.




No, I didn't do all of that today. Just several rounds. The first swatch (yellow and white) was done on size 1 needles. It was a little too loose for my taste. It would be OK for a sweater, but I think mittens will be warmer if a little tighter. So the second swatch is on 0's. I think I'll felt the first one and turn it into a catnip toy.

While doing the scalloped bit at the beginning I discovered that it is really hard for me to knit tightly while working a pattern with yarn overs, especially on the first few rounds. This is going to take some concentration, and probably practice, before I launch into the actual item. I may switch to raised increases to tighten it up.

72 stitches gave a good size for a mitten. What I really want is fingerless mitts, which should fit more closely. I could use fewer stitches, but 72 is such a good number for fitting in patterns: multiples of 2,3,4,6, 8, 9 & 12. Will have to think on this for a bit....

Socks would also be an option, and they would be beautifully warm. But 1) the Palette yarn is not tightly twisted and has no nylon, so I don't know how well they would wear and 2) it's not machine washable.

Finally, I have put the pattern for the Progressive Shawl up on eBay. I'll setting up a link here for the pdf down-loadable version soon.