I Guess I Knit Now

I've taught myself to knit several times in years past, but it's never quite stuck. This was before the days of the massiveness that YouTube is now and personal easy access to a local yarn shop that employed competent and helpful knitters. But this past October I decided I would knit a scarf for my mom for Christmas. I bought some yarn, consulted with local knitters, watched some knitting tutorials on YouTube, and went to work. And now I cannot stop knitting (even though I'm still a mistake-riddled beginner). I think about knitting a lot and I dream about it. In one dream in particular, I dreamt that I started growing fur on my legs, which I then spun into yarn and knit into sweaters. Disturbing? Yes. Awesome? Absolutely. 

This is how Mom's scarf turned out. It looks complicated, but it was an easy beginner project because it hides mistakes, and the laciness is just a matter of counting. I got the pattern from Ravelry.com, but I can't find it again. I thought I had a better pic, but apparently I don't. This is when I was blocking the piece into the correct shape. The color is a lovely deep teal in real life.

Project two was Purlbee's Bandana Cowl, and I ended up making four of these: two for myself, one for nephew Adam, and one for niece Daisy (they paid for their own yarn).

Bandana cowl in progress.

Project three was a hat from Twinkle's Big City Knits for a knitting contest. I came in third (because half my family voted for me, and there's a lot of us, ha!), but my head got first place in warmness for sure. I even crocheted the buttons! 

Somewhere in there I crocheted this scarf.

Project four was very exciting for me. I knit my golf pro baby brother three golf club covers. We decided to base them (color-wise, see sweater below) on the family favorite movie How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. In the movie the boss knits to relieve stress, and he knit his whole golf kit. I used this pattern, again from Purlbee.com. These were challenging because of the small nature of the club cover openings and using double pointed needles, but I got the hang of it...eventually-ish. And I made pompoms, so nothing else matters.

 

 And now I'm working on a chunkiest of chunky cardigan sweater, again from Big City Knits. It's both nerve wracking and exciting, and I really hope it turns out, especially since I made some changes to the pattern. I'm even commissioning some wooden buttons for the project. So that's what I've been up to instead of blogging, I suppose.