Some Winter Knits

Okay, enough already Winter.  I'm done with you.  This is the time of year when my giddy, childlike glee every time it snows fades through resentment into a near rage.  It's just too damn cold and I start feeling guilty about calling out of work for the third day in a row because I'm "nervous" about driving in the snow.  (Guilt, responsibility, same thing) 

Really, my little front-wheel drive car and I can handle driving in the snow--it's all the other idiot drivers who can't.  They either disregard the reduced speed limit and cause a wreck or become paralyzed by fear and drive ~10mph.  Reasonable rate of speed?  What's that?  Parking's a nightmare and static electricity taking over my house. 

To top it all off (if my yoga instructor is to be believed), winter is the season ruled by the liver--that toxin-riddled organ that fuels anxiety, resentment, and any number of negative feelings.  Super.   If Winter wore pants, I would give them a swift kick.

However, to combat the onset of anxiety, the cold does encourage such relaxing activities as hot yoga (if you haven't already, give it a try--my Plug here) and curling up on the couch with some knitting!  Here are two such products of my attempts to stay warm (and happy).

The Hawthorne Scarf:

This huuuge curving scarf/shawl thing is by Susanna IC and published in Twist Collective Fall 2010

Here's a close-up of the pretty little berry pattern:
This thing is seriously ginormous.  I have to wrap it around my neck several times to keep it from dragging--which is absolutely perfect, given how bitter cold it's been lately.  I used Berocco Ultra Alpaca, which means it's soft and warm and very cuddly.  Great "beet root" color, too. 

I didn't *quite* have enough to finish the pattern.  The whole thing is knit sideways, so you knit the lace section from the bottom edge up and then knit the rest in large, sloping "short" rows.  I only bought two skeins of the yarn, hoping this would be enough--not quite.  I had to cut out a couple of the "short" rows and just bind the thing off.  No harm done, though--it's huge anyway and no one can really tell part of the pattern is missing.  That'll be our little secret ;-)

I really wasn't sure I would like knitting a scarf lengthwise like this.  I thought I would get bored with the insanely long rows (I think 325sts at one point), but it was delightful not to have to knit so many mind-numbing rows.  Normally when I knit a scarf I get tired of the pattern after the 3rd or 4th repeat and resent it for the rest of the project.  For Hawthorne, yes the rows were long, but I only had to go through the pattern once.  I will definitely be knitting another scarf in this fashion!

The Herringbone Gloves:

Boy, I am glad to be done with these.  This unfortunate project had the advantage of an awesome-looking FO, but were pretty dang unpleasant to knit.  Mostly I trying to both make a pair of gloves for each of my coats (one more left!) and use up some of my Palette stash.  Totally repetitive and did I mention that the pattern was written in Japanese?

I tried a number of web translators, but the results were all about an intelligible to me as the original Japanese.  So I knit these bad boys based on the numbers and the charts.  For the most part, my efforts paid off--they look nice and fit very well, but lacking instructions in decreasing the fingertips, mine look very long and pointy.   I suppose I could grow out my fingernails to fill them out, but that seems like a lot of effort for naught.  So long my fingertips are pointed away from me, like when I'm driving, I am very pleased with the results!  You couldn't pay me to knit these again, though.  Well, maybe more like you couldn't afford to pay me to knit these again.

Next time I probably will not have another FO for you.  The projects I currently have going are all pretty large and complicated.  Maybe I'll make some progress before then?  We'll see.

Stay warm!

-Allie