Slacker!

Vacation must have agreed with me a little too much. I've been knitting up a storm, walking with the Little One, and even doing a wee bit of housework as well. I came back from Stitches with 2 sweaters, 4 shawls, and a hat's worth of yarn. Eek! The immediate goal is to knit this new stash up before it has time to languish. But wait, there's more!

I've had a skein of Malabrigo Chunky in the Polar Morn colorway in queue for a while and it suddenly struck me that I needed to knit a hat. But not any hat. A slouchy beret! Huh? I am not a hat person but somehow I think this one works and it has the added bonus of knitting up very quickly. Like, 4 hours quickly. Pattern: Icing Swirl Hat by Ysolda Teague. I knit the large size on size 10 needles and had 4 or 5 yards left of the Malabrigo Chunky.

A fellow Purlygirl is having her first baby and it's a boy so I figured I'd knit up a little something something for the little guy. I love love love the book Vintage Baby Knits so I chose to knit the Rufus Textured Cardigan out of Cashsoft DK. This is a fun pattern but I did a lot of modifications. The pattern is written in pieces with the button band partially knit separately and then seaming the whole thing together. I cast on to work all the pieces at once from the bottom, using #4 dpns to knit the button band with the piece but at the smaller required gauge. I joined the arms in the round and knit a la EZ method. Once the button band had eaten up all the stitches for the fronts and sleeve caps I knit the edging sideways joining the held stitches for the back of the neck with the button band. I think I have better notes for this on my Ravelry page. Everyone at knitting seemed to really like this sweater, especially the little shawl collar.

Last, but not least, I finished knitting up Herbivore. This was the second part of my Ravelympics challenge that I did not finish by closing ceremonies. I really like the architectural quality of this piece. The columns of twisted stitches are simple and clean and draw the eye upward and the angular shape is very interesting. It's a nice change from the lacy little shawls I've been knitting recently and the color is gorgeous! I used Malabrigo Sock in Persia. This yarn just loves to be knit on size 6 needles. It's silky and drapey and although it is a sock yarn I think it leads an exciting double-life as lace yarn.