I'm just going to ignore holidays past and look forward to this new year, and the potential it holds. So, let's talk some more about knitting, shall we? I've been doing some.

I'm really getting into this whole lace thing. It's so very fun. I made this version of Abrazo out of some Malabrigo sock:

There are some mistakes, but fewer than I made in my Ishbel shawl, so that's progress, right? It also has beads. I'm not a super sparkle-y kind of girl, but I really like these. They give it a nice weight:

 The pattern calls for laceweight yarn, but I wanted a slightly more substantial shawl, so I used a heavier yarn. I also added more short rows so it's a bit deeper in width. I'm trying to keep thorough notes on my projects now, so if you want more details, they're on my ravelry page (linked above).

I took a short break from lace to knit some cables. This is the second Habitat I've made, it's such a great pattern, which is probably why 1400 other people have made it too.

I recommend tweed for cables. Tweed + Cables is like Peanut Butter + Jelly.

It's not all about the new projects, though. I finished the chevron scarf I was working on. My plan was to use every bit of the two skeins of yarn, but I was just plain tired of knitting this when it was seven feet long, so I quit with probably half a ball left and called it done. 

I've also made lots of progress on the Seraphim shawl, It's working up just beautifully:

This is the first time I've used a lifeline, and it's given me perhaps too much confidence. Can you see my mistake? Here it is:

I missed a yarn over, but I think I'm going to have to learn to live with it. I just can't bring myself to rip back that far. Any ideas for fixing it that don't involve re-doing all that work? 

And one last little project, just because it's cold out there, and no one wants cold eggs, I made some tiny pink stocking caps.

They were an easy little knit, but I was thinking of writing up the pattern if anyone is interested. They're great for using up those leftover bits of sock yarn.  

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I've been meaning to post some pictures or something, but I came down with an annoying cold the day before Thanksgiving and so I've just been feeling sorry for myself. I like to keep things nice and happy here, so I've been at a loss. I love the holidays, but due to many circumstances, I'm having a bit of a hard time this year. I'm not sure if I will be able to visit my family, my cold is still lingering, and Thanksgiving was kind of a failure all around. These are all minor problems, so I am irritated with myself for the ridiculous pity party I've been having the last few weeks. I am trying really hard to generate some Christmas cheer. 

In an effort to start feeling more Christmas-y, I thought I'd try and do a little something for the holidays every day. I've started playing Christmas music, I'm putting the finishing touches on a couple handmade gifts, I think I'll set up the tree this weekend, and I hung my big wreath up on the front of the house the other day. And then I noticed that some of the lights were out. It seems to be exemplifying my attitude right now: trying to let my (Christmas) light shine, but not quite succeeding. Blergh.

At least I have this fuzzy face to keep me company while I pull out the decorations:

I'll try to get over myself soon. 

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My knitting mania is continuing, and I'm really wanting to clean up my stash, so I took a break from all the stockinette I've been doing and used a lone ball of Koigu KFM for a small Ishbel scarf.

I like all these colors, but they're a bit much all together like this. The yarn was a total impulse buy last summer when we spent a day in Ketchum, Idaho while I was visiting my family. I found a little yarn shop, and there was a single, lonely hank in the 50% off basket. So for $11 I have a cheery, lacy scarf. It's not quite my usual thing, but I'll probably wear it now and then. 

 Ultimately, knitting this little confection only took a few days, but it did take three attempts at starting the lace section before I got it (mostly) right. I'm still learning to read lace, so I'm glad I did this before getting into the lace on my Seraphim shawl. I'm not sure what my problem was, it's a pretty simple lace pattern, but I kept losing stitches and couldn't find them again. Once I realized the double-decreases were stacked right on top of each other, it got a little easier. There were still mistakes, but I just figured if I missed a stitch somewhere I could just pick one up in the approximate spot and it would all work out in the end. I don't think anyone will notice when I'm wearing it all draped and squished around my neck. 

Because I'm in such a stash-busting state of mind, I've been doing a lot of thinking about knitting, and thought I'd share some things I've been finding useful lately. 

1. It goes without saying that if you knit, you should have a Ravelry account. What I love about it is that you can use the site however you'd like. I don't spend a lot of time in the forums, but with all the groups, you can certainly find some like-minded knitters to chat with. I do, however, have a few friends, and I just discovered the friend's activity tab. It's a great way to find new patterns, especially if you have friends with similar taste. I'm also keeping better notes on my projects, and slowly adding my stash yarns, which will make it easy to match up that stash yarn with the perfect project, and therefore, clear out my stash even faster. Yes! 
2. Ravelry related: Ariane of the Falling Stitches blog does a regular post called What's Hot on Ravelry, where she searches out the best of the newly listed patterns. She has reliably good taste, and has posted some lovely patterns that I might not have otherwise found. 
3. I've taken a break from audio books (I still haven't listened to the last disc of Edgar Sawtelle), and I've been listening to knitting podcasts during my commute. The Knit Picks podcast has some good episodes, and I found the one about blocking your knits (episode 123, I believe) truly helpful. I've only listened to a couple episodes of The Knit Wits, but this married couple is pretty darn funny and entertaining. The Knitmore Girls are an adorable mother-daughter knitting duo, and I've also enjoyed a few episodes of Ready, Set, Knit, the WEBS podcast. Do you have any good knitting podcasts to recommend? 
4. This is a pretty cool tool if you like knitting from charts (which I do!): KnitChart. Give it a minute to load, and then you can easily chart your design. 

One more stash project:

I had to try out Malabrigo's sock yarn. I'm happy to report that I really like it and would like lots more socks knit from it. Do you like my rustic back drop? It's been dark and dreary and in every picture I took inside the socks were a different color. This one is actually pretty close, although they are slightly more purple: 

I think this is the fourth pair of Embossed Leaves socks I've knit. I know I need to branch out more, but I like everything about this pattern. It's interesting but not too hard, they're pretty, and they fit perfectly. 

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I'm definitely a spring person. I love flowers and green and all the new sprouting life. I was born in the spring, so it just makes sense. But fall seems to have arrived in earnest now, and I'm realizing how much I enjoy this time of year too. Up here in the mountains it gets frosty every night, while the days are still warming up to a perfect 65 degrees. I fired up the wood burning stove for the first time since last winter, and spent a cozy Sunday evening knitting and contemplating how to re-arrange the furniture in our tiny room so I could sit right in front of it for the next five months. 

I'm starting to appreciate all the foods of this season as well. The weekend started with pumpkin pancakes, inspired by the fact that I woke from a crazy dream in which two old ladies had somehow barged into our house and commandeered the kitchen. They insisted that they wanted to make me pumpkin pancakes. It was strange and happy, except when they spilled the can of bacon grease all over my kitchen floor. I woke up when the frustration of trying to clean up all the grease while they were stepping over me became too much to bear. And I found myself craving pumpkin pancakes. 

The two ladies were nowhere to be found, so I went to work. And no cans of grease were spilled while I whipped up a batch of tender, hot, flavorful pancakes. My recipe could use a little work, but I crave pancakes about once a year, so if you can figure out how to tweak it to make it just perfect, let me know. As it is, it's really good, and the leftover pancakes are almost even better. At least Mr. HeyLucy seemed to think so, as he proceeded to eat the leftovers that were sitting on a plate on the stove, over the course of the weekend.

Pumpkin Pancakes

1 1/2 c. flour

1/4 c. brown sugar

1 t. baking powder

1 t. cinnamon

1/4 t. each ground cloves, nutmeg and ginger (adjust to your liking. I only added a dash of each, and it was not quite enough flavor. I will add more next time).

1/2 t. kosher salt

3/4 c. canned pumpkin (about half a can)

2 large eggs (I used duck eggs now that our ducks are laying in earnest, and I think they are great for baking!)

1 1/2 c. milk

1 t. vanilla

3 T. melted butter

Combine the dry ingredients. In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Dump the wet into the dry and mix just to combine. Cook them up on a buttered griddle and eat them while they're hot! 

So here are my thoughts on the finished pancakes: they were very, very moist, almost like they weren't cooked through. I'm wondering if I should have used less milk to make them a little drier. Fresh out of the pan they were good, but that moistness was actually very nice when eating them cold as leftovers. I also definitely need to add more spices next time. I could taste them, but the pancakes were just not quite spicy enough. 

Some other seasonal foods we are really enjoying right now include Roasted Acorn Squash with Wild Rice Stuffing, which I made for Sunday dinner along with some simple grilled pork chops. I will be making this again soon, it was so delicious, and really easy. Plus it's really adaptable, you can make as much as you need and switch up the type of rice you use. It worked well to use just one squash for the two of use, but it's easy enough to make more if you have a crowd. It would be a really pretty side dish to bring to a Thanksgiving dinner too. 

On the sweet side, I got some Chewy Egg Nog cookies from Trader Joe's, which were pretty yummy, and their Spiced Apple Cider is just about perfect, not too sweet and just the right amount of cinnamon. 

What are your favorite treats of the season? 

 

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So I thought that knitting season had finally arrived in earnest when I woke up Sunday morning to white frosty roofs and white frosty ground, but it turns out the autumn can't seem to commit, and it was nearly 80 degrees today. I don't care, I'm forging ahead with my knitting plans anyway. It will eventually get cold enough for sweaters and boots, even if I am wearing a skirt and sandals today, right? 

I'm pretty excited to have finished my Tea Leaves cardigan! I love it, and even wore it one rainy day last week. It was crazy warm and cozy. I just gave it a quick steam blocking, so I still need to block it properly. With the previously cold and wet weather, I just didn't want to soak it and then have to wait days for it to dry, but now that it warmed back up, I think I better do it soon so I'll be ready when those colder days return. So, that's my excuse for not having any photos wearing it, they will have to wait until it gets a wash and a block. These will have to do in the meantime:

 

The buttons were a flea market find during a weekend trip to New York years and years ago. I think the tarnished brass suits the pumpkin alpaca quite nicely. 

I didn't quite keep to my resolution of finishing all current projects before starting another, and suddenly felt I needed to knit a hat. But I had the yarn (ravelry link), and I had the pattern (ravelry link), and it was a quick and satisfying project started and finished all the same day. 

Again, no modeling shot, since I was having a bad hair day, but trust me, it's pretty darn cute.

The mitts are done, and the shawl is growing, and I still love the Malabrigo lace yarn. The color is so perfect and interesting and just pretty. 

Since I finished a few things I was allowed to start some others. I love a cozy, loose sweater, so I started a Snowbird (ravelry link). I've been thinking that I have a problem. I tend to like sweaters with a lot of stockinette stitch, but it gets boring, and so I start things and don't finish. I'm working on getting over the boredom, and this pattern definitely helps. While it is pretty much all stockinette, it has some interesting construction that I think will fight the boredom.

I was able to continue perfecting my provisional cast on technique, and I think I've got it down. I'm keeping things tidy as I knit, so I practiced grafting the collar sections together as soon as I could. I hope that someday I'll be able to do the kitchener stitch from memory and not have to look it up, but I'm not quite there yet. I've also now learned how to do an i-cord edging (at least I think that's what it is), which I very much like the look of. I think I am at the point as a knitter, where I appreciate a little challenge in a knitting project, and I want to learn something new with each new thing that I knit, so I'm so pleased with this sweater so far because I am learning and challenged.

I know, that's a pretty boring picture, you can't even tell what it is, but it's the collar and beginning of the back. Another inch or two, and I'll sew the collar down. I think the finishing bits are also a nice break from stockinette. Oh, and I didn't mention the yarn! I'm using Knit Picks City Tweed DK, which is so nice for the price. Once I grafted the collar, I steam blocked it a bit to prepare to sew it to the back, and it turned into the nicest, soft, drapey fabric. I'm looking forward to wearing this one this winter, so I better keep going! 

Oh, wait! One more little thing on the needles! This is a gift for a friend that loved my daffodil jaywalkers. I accidentally bought this yarn in sport weight, rather than sock weight, and it's been languishing in my stash for ages. There's not a lot you can do with yarn this bright, but the chevron scarf from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts seemed like a pretty good match. 

I'm making it a bit narrower, and went up to size 7 needles for a slightly drapey-er scarf (why is drapier not a word? it totally should be!). 

So, how many projects are you working on? Am I weird for having so many? My sister works on only one thing at a time and has no yarn stash. This impresses and disturbs me. 

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