But is it TOO perfect?

Well, it finally happened.  I hopped on Ye Olde Bandwagon and cast on for a Color Affection shawl of my very own.  (Truth be told, I bought my ticket for that fun train months ago when my friend Marie-Michele and I spent about an hour debating colour combinations of Grinning Gargoyle Seda Sock at Rhinebeck, but I only jumped on 10 days ago.)

Anyway, it's charming.  Utterly charming.  Cushy and comforting.  Like oatmeal on a cold winter morning.  The soothing garter stitch is predictable, familiar, yet kept from being monotonous by the novelty of the colour changes.  And it's flying off the needles!  A friend remarked that it's a good thing I'm knitting with aluminum needles, because I'd be fixin' to set my knitting on FIRE I'm rubbing these here pointy sticks together so fast.  All in all, I'd say it's perfect, perfect knitting.

Then last night, as I rolled my knitting into a ball and left it on the couch lovingly tucked my knitting away for the evening, I wondered at how swimmingly everything was going, and that's when it happened.  A shadow of doubt.  A wrinkle.  A question... maybe this was going too well?  Maybe it was too perfect?  Maybe I'd done something wrong?

The instructions had seemed fairly straightforward, but what if I had made a mistake?  The third section of the shawl has you knitting 3 stitches past a previously wrapped stitch.  Had I been picking up too many stitches all along? Had I been over-thinking the directions and taken the instructions too literally?  Had I inadvertently turned my perfect, winter comfort knitting into a pile of absolute drivel that I would need to rip back in quiet shame?

All night, it bothered me.   I barely slept a wink.  This morning, once I was caffeinated and the kids were safely off to school, I knew what I had to do.

Math.

Good news: it's going to be fine.  My bad!

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Call me Mrs McMatchyPants

A few weeks ago I had dinner with a good friend of mine, who also happens to be a knitter.  Knowing that she would appreciate them, I took special care when selecting my winter woolens.  I had just completed the Neon Ski Bonnet, which I showed you a few posts ago,  so naturally I grabbed that first.  I paired the hat with my (yet-to-be-documented) Different Lines shawl, and my (also yet-to-be-documented) Wood Hollow Mittens.   The shawl is knit out of Sanguine Gryphon Bugga in a rich pink and black combo, and the mittens are in a pinkish/blueish/greyish wool.  And, in case you missed it, my Neon Ski Bonnet is, well... cranberry. Bright red.

Being a knitter, my friend honed in on my new hat right away, and dutifully oohed and aaahed.  Being a fashionable knitter, she also remarked, albeit affectionately, that my accessories were somewhat lacking in the coordination department.

It was true.  Despite my best intentions, I had fallen into the knitters' trap.  There I was, proudly showing off each individual piece as testaments to my knitterly skill and general awesomeness, but I had completely forgotten the fact that they were no longer knitting projects but articles of clothing.  If I had gone to work in an outfit as uncoordinated as that, I might have been mistaken for a patient in the psychiatric ward.  Just sayin'.

I really did love that hat though.  And I still had about 250 yards left of that never-ending Shelridge.  So I set about knitting up some matching accessories.

 Clockwise, from top left: Neon Ski Bonnet, Wood Hollow Mittens, and Ziyal Cowl.

I had knit the mittens before, and I figured the cables and twisted stitch border pattern would be a good match for the headband of the hat.  I was wondering what I was going to do for a cowl when I happened upon the Ziyal cowl, by Allison Goldthorpe, a free pattern on Ravelry.  It uses the same smocked stitch pattern as the ski bonnet.  Score!

Matching, coordinated winter accessories, using leftover yarn that's been marinating in the stash since 2008.  I am living the dream, people.

Happy Knitting, Everyone!