New Growth

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it?

Spring is springing, and many things are happily growing.






Other things have already grown up, and their happy colors greeted me at the stage door.






...and some things...















Are all grown up, and keeping the chill away.





The facts:

Pattern: Simple Things by Mary-Heather Cogar

Yarn: One skein (440yds) of Malabrigo Sock in "Archangel". I had a teensy bit left over when I was done.

Needles: No. 3/3.25 KA Bamboo Circulars

My Thoughts: I added several repeats of the garter eyelet ridge to accommodate the nearly 100 yds of extra yarn than the pattern called for. The pattern is for a skein of Pagewood Farms Aleyska, which is about 350 yds. This shawl was a challenge, because it introduced about a billion things that I had never done before:

-yarn-overs
-circular needles
-k2tog
-working with natural fibers and bamboo (I was prepared for it to be better than acrylic and aluminum, but I wasn't prepared for how much better.)
-Picking up dropped yarn-overs
-Picking up mistakes from rows down and correcting them without ripping out the work. (I felt like a rock star, big time, when this happened.)
-Blocking natural fiber, knitted.
-Blocking with blocking wires.


This is not a shawl. It is a flag of victory.