New Stuff

Well, a belated update... Christmas vacation has been fine so far, and I have been especially productive on the knitting front, if not so much on the writing.

After I finished the garter rib sweater, I wanted to do a small project and so I taught myself the brioche stitch from EZ's Knitting Without Tears. It's incredibly quick and fun once you get the hang of it, and I love the fabric it produces. So I used that to whip up several watchcaps for presents and for personal use. Later, I discovered this website, which sparked my imagination even more with ideas of what to do with this stitch.

I have also been working on two sweaters: one Wonderful Wallaby hoodie in orange, for a friend, and another Lopi-style seamless yoke in fall colors for me. They are both proceeding apace. I expect that the Lopi will probably be done by the second week of the new year and the Wallaby hopefully by the end of January.

After I finish those, I have another sweater project lined up -- a Celtic Aran, but I haven't yet worked out the design or calculations for that one.

While working on the sleeves for the Lopi, I had a little bit of a brainstorm for a way to do mittens and gloves, two at a time, seamlessly. I haven't seen the method that I am thinking of described anywhere in the literature, so I want to research a little bit to see if this is really original or not. I also want to do a test knit to verify that the method will work, but it seems like it should.

My other knitting resolutions for the new year? To clear out some UFO's lurking in my project area... in particular there are two hats that I need to finish, and a pair of socks. Plus, I want to start exploring Cat Bordhi's books. In non-knitting but still fiber-related resolutions, I really want to learn to weave, both on the traditional loom as well as card/tablet weaving. I think that non-fiber resolutions should probably go into a separate post...

I guess that that's probably enough for now, so I will sign off and wish everyone a very Happy 2009!