Spring here in the midwest is such a welcome relief. I’ve lived here all my life and still this first week when everything turns green and the weather is consistently warmer that freezing gives me hope for the future. We get into this feeling about mid-March that it just will never get nice again and stay that way. We cry and curse that we never get a real spring and why the hell is it snowing AGAIN? and on and on. But every year the daffodils and magnolia bloom and before we know it we are cursing the mosquitoes and dandelions.

This is the time of year when things that have been in hibernation for months and months make a reappearance. In some cases what goes into the cave at the beginning of the winter makes a transformation into another form once the warm air of spring arrive. Take for instance the lime green cardigan knit with Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece a year ago.

It was yarn and a pattern purchased on a whim about a year ago at a Friday knitting group when the project I brought to knit either ran out of yarn or something and I needed something new to work on. I’ve always admired this yarn and the color just screams SPRING! to me. The problem was the pattern. The photo in the pattern book appealed to me, totally something I would buy for myself, I love cardigans. But it is constructed all in pieces with a lot of seaming. I hate seaming. Also the store only had 4 skeins of the Cotton Fleece in that color. I figured it would be enough and being cotton it would stretch. But once all the parts were knit I could just tell it wouldn’t fit in the loose unconstructed way it appeared in the photos. So I put it all in a bag and stuck it in a closet.
Then the other day I finished my Ripple Afghan (oh my, I just realized that I never posted the finished pictures. I’ll get to that, it is gorgeous!) and was going to cast on a new project. I had picked up a huge amount of Paton’s Classic Wool at Joann’s last month on sale with a Central Park Hoodie in mind. But then Turtlegirl posted that she was starting a Mama Escuelita sweater and I really wanted to make that. But then I realized that Rosi hasn’t made the pattern live yet so I was out of instant gratification luck. Plus it was nearing 80 degrees that particular day and knitting a wool sweater was getting less and less appealing as the temperature rose, especially one in a dark neutral color like the yarn I had on hand.

This of course led to a few hours of browsing on Ravelry (second only to Facebook for sucking any and all spare minutes of my life right out of me.) Through no logical progression I found myself admiring Ysolda’s Liesl. A light went on in my little knitter brain and I remembered the unfinished lime cardigan hibernating away up in the guest room closet. Let the downloading begin! While the pattern printed I started frogging.

I am now a few repeats past the armholes. Another day or two and I’ll probably be knitting sleeves. I debated making the sleeveless version but with this pattern I have more than enough yarn so I’m going for the 3/4 length sleeve.

I did order a new usb cord for my camera so getting photos to my blog isn’t as time consuming and annoying as it had been for a few months there. I will do my best to get some updated pics and finished project photos up here in a more timely manner.

By the way, I changed my blog template the other day but when I hit the “preview” button I still get the original template. If you read this in a regular browser window (not a feed reader) could you take a second to leave a comment and tell me what the template looks like? Thank you.

I started to write a post with these pictures over a week ago. But then my camera to computer interface was giving me fits and I ran out of time the day I was doing it and never got back to it. So here I am! Ta Da!

I’ve been knitting and crocheting in between going to the theater for rehearsals. We opened Dearly Beloved last Friday to a great audience. I have more to say on all that but it will have to wait for another post.

The above blanket is made using this pattern. It’s fast and easy and I love the way the colors work together. It came about because Sarah and I decided one afternoon to tear the gas fireplace out of the living room. We put this big square fireplace in shortly after we moved in here but before we remodeled the kitchen/family room. At the time the living room was just a sitting room with some toys in the back corner. It made it look more formal and added a focal point. But after the remodel we moved the tv in there and then the room had two big focal points and not enough room for the proper seating arrangement for optimum tv viewing pleasure. It had been bugging Sarah and I for months but we couldn’t convince Steve is was time for it to go. So one week he was out of town for six days and we took the opportunity to get rid of it. Problem is that now we have a hole in our wall behind the couch and an electrical outlet about 5 feet up on the middle of the wall. (I’m looking for a handyman to come in and fix that soon.)

So how does ripping a gas fireplace off a wall lead to a new blanket? Surprisingly it isn’t because the room is now cold because we almost never used the actual gas logs in there because it would get TOO hot. You see the thermostat is also in the living room, behind the big tv, so it already is unreliable and leads to the rest of the house being too cold while the living room is about 10 degrees warmer. No it was because once the fireplace was gone and the brown leather couch moved from the den to the living room and the rest of the furniture rearranged, I wanted an afghan that matched the decor on the back of the couch. I love my old fashioned, colorful Granny Square afghan that Emma and I made this winter but the colors are a bit garish. My friend Jodee was finishing up her Ripple Blanket one Friday at knitting and it inspired me to make my own to match my “new” living room. I also broke out the sewing machine and stitched together some quick pillows in the green and brown Olives and Damask fabric in Lila Tueller’s Santorini line.

Before I started the crochet afghan I had cast on and started knitting on this shawl. It is the Gail/Nightsong pattern available free on Ravelry. I’m finally using the Briar Rose lace yarn I’ve been calling my “Invisibility Cloak” yarn since buying it at a fiber festival the day after attending the final Harry Potter midnight book release party. Like most laceweight projects the final beauty of this shawl won’t be evident until it is finished and blocked. I’m going to have a lot of yarn left over even if I make it much bigger than the pattern. In hindsight I should have knit it with the yarn doubled. As it is it will be as light as a feather. I’m still debating on if I’m going to added tiny beads around the edges. I think they’d add a nice bit of sparkle and the added weight may help it hang better. We’ll see. Right now it is resting in my knitting bag. It is too fiddly and takes too much concentration to knit at knitting group or backstage in the dark.

Emma went with me to knitting last Friday and that resulted in me buying yarn, pattern and casting on yet another project. She saw a finished sample of the Prairie Boots at Wool & Co. and wanted a pair. I have the left boot done and got all of the right foot done last night. If I go knit after finishing this post she’ll have a finished pair of boots by the time she gets home from school today. (They’ll still need buttons and leather soles but the knitting will be done.)

What new projects are you all doing now? Does the change of seasons inspire you to make big changes in your surroundings?

I’m on a shawl knitting kick right now. I found quite a few free patterns for small, one-skein shawls on Ravelry and I couldn’t choose just one so I’m knitting them all!

This one is “Traveling Woman” designed by Liz Abinante of Feministy.com.

It is knitting up either really quickly or I am just obsessed and working on it way too much. I cast it on over the weekend with some frogged Dream in Color “Smooshy”. But I used the end of the yarn that was freshly frogged and it was still really crinkly which gave the finished knitting a weird look. I figured it would all come out with blocking so I continued on. But about half way through the stockinette part I realized I’d missed a few edge increases somewhere along the way and decided to frog it and start over. I also dampened it and rewound it to take out the kinks and started from the other end of the yarn. I’m much happier with the result now and think in the long run it will look more even after blocking.

I didn’t really like this yarn for socks. I cast on and knit almost one entire sock out of it TWICE! But frogged both attempts because I just wasn’t happy with them. The first attempt was one from Cat Bordhi’s book in the Riverbed architecture. I don’t remember exactly what my problem with it was but I think I just kept messing up the pattern and gave up. The second attempt I don’t even know what pattern it was which was the main reason I frogged it. I couldn’t knit the second sock if I didn’t know what pattern I used now could I? Plus it was too tight and it felt stiff and scratchy. This yarn is perfect for this project though. The looser gauge gives it room to breath and it is much softer and drapier than I ever imagined it would be after my earlier unsuccessful sock attempts with it.

I’ve also added two repeats of the main lace pattern and still have a good amount of yarn left over so I’m hoping I’ll end up just right. Leave it to me to just wing in and hope for the best instead of putting in a life-line after one of the repeats in case I run out and have to rip back. I like living on the edge!

I’m also not sure if this is a keeper for me or if it will end up being a gift. Mother’s Day and Mom’s birthday are coming up in May. Shhhhh, don’t tell her! Maybe she won’t read this post and it will be a surprise. I think this color will be really pretty on her and I haven’t knit her anything in a while.

This is probably going to be my next project. Made out of this yarn. Just some Knit Picks Shadows lace I picked up on sale last fall. At this rate my stash should be shrinking pretty fast and my stock of finished projects just keeps growing.

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AND THE WINNER IS!

I almost forgot to post the winner of the T-shirt give away. It was Emily!!! Quite fitting since she inspired the entire thing anyway. Emily I will send you an email to let you know you won and find out which style and size you’d like. (I can bring it to you tomorrow at knitting!)