I See Spring Finished

 Hi all -

Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there! I hope you are having an incredible day!

We're still in our spring/winter cycle here. It was beautiful for the last couple of days, and now we are starting to get the next snow storm. We're again forecast to get 1-1.5' of snow by Tuesday morning. If we get that then this will be the 5th foot-plus storm in 5 weeks. Looks good for fire season this year!

I'm excited to have finished my I See Spring sweater designed by Joji Locatelli:

I See Spring

It only took a couple of hours to pick up the stitches and finish the neckline, once I got myself motivated. I love how it turned out! It's a good weight for spring and I've been wearing it a lot in the evenings.

I had to get my current sweater finished so that I could start on my new sweater. Now I'm working on a Comfort Fade Cardi designed by Andrea Mowry. I'm making this sweater as part of a knit-along (KAL) with the Grocery Girls podcast. I really enjoy this podcast and it has introduced me to a bunch of beautiful yarns and interesting designers and patterns. They are sponsoring a KAL of this pattern running from March 19 through June 19. I got a late start, but I'll try to get mine done on time. They will be drawing prizes for anyone who has finished. There are a lot of people in the KAL so it's unlikely I would get a prize, but it's still fun to try! This pattern makes a faded sweater, which means that you slowly move through a collection of yarns while knitting the sweater. These are the yarns that I'm using:

Comfort Fade Cardi - yarns

I love these beautiful colors! I've been working hard on this project and I've made some good progress:

Comfort Fade Cardi - current progress

It shouldn't take too much longer to finish the body, but then I'll have the arms to finish, which always take a lot longer than expected, and the pattern has a shawl collar which will also take some time. It'll be fun to work on and will be a beautiful sweater, even if I don't make the finishing deadline!

My final knitting project hasn't really been started yet. It's the Open Minds mystery knit-along (MKAL) designed by Laura Nelkin. In a MKAL, you don't know what you're knitting until it's finished. You are told what supplies you need (or you can buy a kit) and you get portions of the pattern (called "clues") periodically until you've finished the project. I decided to just buy a kit because Laura puts together beautiful kits. Here's the kit I got, along with the project bag I'm keeping everything in:

Open Minds - kit contents

In some MKALs, you don't know anything about what you're making until it's done. For this MKAL, we do know that we're making a shawl and that it has an "interesting" construction. It includes optional beads, which add to the fun. I love doing Laura's MKALs because they are always interesting knits and I always learn something. They mystery part is great because it allows me to work on a project that might be too intimidating if I saw what I was going to make before I started. There's also support from everyone else who's also working on the project, so I can get help if I get stuck. And Laura is incredible about answering questions. And even if I don't need help, I usually learn something or get unexpected pointers from reading the answers to other people's questions. It's really a lot of fun! So far, we've just gotten the supply list and instructions on making our gauge swatch:

Open Minds - gauge swatch

Since everyone knits differently, the gauge swatch is important so that you can determine which size needles you need to use to get results that match what the designer got. Getting the right gauge not only helps you get the right size project in the end, but also helps to ensure that you don't run out of yarn.

Aside from knitting, I've also made progress on my Christmas banner felt applique project:

Most of the larger pieces are attached, so now it will mostly be details that I'm adding. Once I finish this project, I'll probably start on a felt applique Christmas stocking for my brother-in-law. My mom made Christmas stockings for all of her kids and the grandkids, but we've been using generic stocking for spouses. So I want to make stockings for my brother-in-law and for my niece's husband at some point so they will have nice stockings, too. Nobody is expecting them so there's no pressure if I don't get them made, but I think it would be nice.

Finally, I made a little bit of progress on my Count the Stars cross-stitch project:

Count the Stars

It's not much, but every stitch gets me closer to finishing.

Nancy