Not much blogging last year, although there was a lot of knitting, including a bumper crop of Christmas gifts. My current blog here does not support photo albums, so I will attempt to keep my Ravelry notebook up to date as my complete archive. On Ravelry I am "canstash," both because I can and do continue to feed the stash which threatens to overtake the house, and because I am proudly Canadian.
My biggest project last fall was a new afghan for my sister. I've knit the pattern once before (Plaid Texture afghan, free from Patons) in dark, rich colors, but this time I went for a more modern palette, to match white leather couches and pale gray walls. I would even knit this pattern again: I love its thermally texture. The only change I made was to widen the border. The original was just one stripe, making a very narrow edging.
She loved it!
Another gift received with excitement was the Star Wars hat I made for my oldest grandson (free pattern on Ravelry). We've all been fans forever, and still have the 1980's original Millenium Falcon, ak ak, and a large collection of figures that my daughter played with back then. We enjoyed The Force Awakens immensely, finding it a return to the spirit and adventure of A New Hope. Kudos to J. J. Abrams and the new generation of actors taking lead roles!
The last Christmas gift free pattern that I want to recommend is the Amanda hat. I made this one for Mom in Fleece Artist BFL Aran in variegated soft pinks and gray. My friend Anne Marie made it the gift of the year, knitting about ten of them for all the girls and women in her family, adapting the stitch count for the little ones. All much appreciated, and an interesting texture stitch for the knitter. It looks good in multicolored yarn, solid colors, or even with contrast color for the garter stitch sections.
First finished object of 2016 is also a hat, for my daughter's birthday. I wanted to try out some Americo yarn, purchased on our mother/daughter weekend in Toronto last October. She wanted a fine knit, close fitting hat, similar to the ones she buys at Roots. Together we chose the Rick Rack Hat by Olga Buraya-Kefelian. The large number of stitches, constantly knit in twisted stitches, right one row then left, were discouraging in cotton yarn with no stretch, knit on smaller than usual needles. My hands ached, and my attention often wavered, necessitating some ripping in the early days of knitting. Finally I found a rhythm. When I got to the final section and saw the genius, original way that the designer handled the decreases, keeping the design going, I really began to appreciate the pattern. Now I'll probably knit it again, but definitely in wool next time.
Beautiful hat, beautiful girls. I'm a lucky knitter.
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