Winter is coming!

The Christmas presents are done. Hooray! This means I have plenty of time to do some work for stuff for me before my trip to America in November, where I will be handing over most of the stuff I've made for others. The one exception to being finished is my husband's present, but since I have over 2 months, and have already started it, I feel justified in working on some selfish stuff.

The cold season is trying to start, and in true British fashion has yet to make up its mind. Nevertheless, I have got a start on some warm stuff which will serve me well in the months to come. I bought a lot of yarn for big things this year, and so have a lot of big projects on the table for the next several months. Already, I'm half done with an afghan that's knit up in bulky yarn: I chose Wendy Mistral. This particular colour is called Luna, which seems to fit; my sister thinks it looks like the night sky. It's especially effective because of the constant YOs in the pattern, giving a diamond appearance to the knit fabric. This picture shows one repeat of a 32 row chart; there are 6 repeats in total. It really looks stunning! With a wool/acrylic mix, it's also warm.

I'm also working on a new hat for myself, since the other one I made was too big and I gave it away. One thing I didn't like about the other one was that I made it in black, which didn't show off the lace pattern at all, so I've gone the other way this time and am making it in white. The name is Rose Red, and is depicted in red on the sample picture by the designer, but I thought roses could be a lot of colours, and don't really wear a lot of red. You can just see the pointed flower petals in between the six arms stretching around the hat. I've made one already, and the finished hat is the yellow one to the right and below. It incorporates a nice cable pattern as the stem. I loved knitting the first one, and I can't wait to finish the second. It's knit in a cotton /rayon/linen/silk mix, so is fairly lightweight. I figure it'll be ok for British winters and inside, but also for the summer.


Once I get a little further with these two projects, I have a few sweaters I want to get on the needles: the Scoop Pullover (Ravelry link) and the Meringue Yoke Cardigan (Ravelry link), both of which I have sourced from magazines I got on DVD. The scoop pullover I have lined up for some Sublime Organic Merino DK (the grey) I got on sale and the yoke cardigan I plan to make with some absolutely luscious Mirasol K'acha (the purple) I got from a few destashes. Win!