Happy Birthday, Meme!

Happy Birthday, Meme!! Wandering Aran Fields is done, blocked, buttoned, fini! Blocking helped to soften the Patons crapola up quite a bit and gave the whole garment a nice feel and drape. This project felt like it took forever, but it was really only about 3 weeks all together.

Pattern: Wandering Aran Fields by Norah Gaughan in Wrap Style

Yarn: Patons Wool

Needles: Knitpicks options in size 6-8

And just because, a bonus picture of Hermione posing with the capelet.

Finally! I can call myself a knitter again!

At least a knitter who finishes things. I finished up my mystery project, which I am sure Jenny has guessed is her birthday present. It's fabulous and I can't wait to post pictures. And after a weekend of the husband being away I have managed to make some terrific progress on Wandering Aran Fields. I've finished the body and I'm making the button bands both at the same time. It's even more full of cat hair, but I know I'm not the only knitter to have that as a nice little feature in her knitting, so I'm just planning on giving it a good bath and a once over with some tape to pull it all out. I think it's mostly Hermione's since she likes to stick her head up inside the circulars and snuggle. How can you resist the snuggling though?

I'm pretty excited about WAF though. It just looks very cuddly and soft and still elegant - just the way cables should be.

Mystery #1 is blocking

Yippee!!! It's blocking and the issue I whined about to my small group of crafters on a message board that the recipient can never see has been resolved, and I'm actually completely psyched about how I resolved it.

And I had to frog about 4 rows of WAF last night. Never knit and drink margaritas.

One of the two...

... projects that I am working on. Since I can't show you the other one, here is the gift I have started for my grandmother. That's the very bottom of the Wandering Aran Fields capelet. It's very cosy and warm already, and absolutely full of cat hair. It's like the yarn demands cat hair. I've given up and I'm hoping I can lint brush it out at the end. A girl can hope!

Never ever trust my lists of projects

I am seriously a huge flake. I have a designated area for my stash and I really want to keep it that way. The basket is already overflowing with yarn that really is being used (Lady Eleanor takes a lot of yarn, people!) Last year when I was a new knitter (it seems so long ago!) I planned to make myself a felted bag. In cream. Oh how boring. I'm sure it will come out nice and that after doing a bunch of complicated stuff I will be happy to make something nice and simple. But for now, I need complicated. I need challenge. And grandma needs a birthday gift. And I need to get rid of 5 skiens of Patons Wool Merino in cream.

Enter Wandering Aran Fields. It's a gorgeous cabled capelet that I think would be great to do but might never get worn. Who would wear it? Grandma who is cold constantly would love it. She has a birthday in April. A wool capelet in a gift in April? Grandma keeps her house at like 90 degrees. Trust me, she'll wear that bad boy all summer.

Yay. Problem solved.