Fresh Starts

I’ve made a couple of Alana Dakos’s designs (I liked the Cedar Leaf Shawlette so much I made it twice), so I was intrigued to hear about her latest collection: Botanical Knits. It consists of 12 designs inspired by nature, and it’s heavy on leaves, which I love.

I looked at it closely with the idea that I might use stash yarn for something. I’m trying to knit exclusively from stash, at least until MDSW. Participating in the Stash & Burn UILI is keeping me honest!

When I realized that the print edition of the book won’t be out until May, but that until then, you get a free (and instantaneously delivered) e-copy of the book with print pre-order, I jumped. She has this purchase set up so that you get all the separate patterns AND the full pdf ebook in Ravelry – very slick.

And, to my surprise, along with the book came a discount code to purchase any of Alana’s previously published botanically-inspired patterns at half off.

I decided to get Oak Grove, a fingerless mitt/glove pattern featuring an oak leaf (so it’s not really a grove, but still…).It calls for sportweight yarn, which I don’t typically have on hand. But last year, I purchased a skein from The Plucky Knitter, intending to make the Kalajoki socks. I still haven’t gotten around to those, and frankly, my sock box is overflowing. Why not make these instead? The color is called “Lincoln” but it looks just like autumn, doesn’t it?

Still high from the success of my Sebastian gloves (first time ever knitting glove fingers), I decided to make the fingerless GLOVE version of this instead of the mitts. And here is glove #1. I cast on for #2 this morning, and these will be my UILI03 project.

In other news, I’ve been clearing the decks. I had two projects on the needles that I decided just weren’t going to make it to the finish line. Remember these Elm socks?

I got down to the heel turn and started picking up the gusset stitches, but it still felt too tight. I ripped them out, refreshed the yarn (i.e., get the kinks out by soaking it in water), and rewound it. Now it’s ready for a 4th life. I love this yarn – I don’t know why it’s fighting with me so much.

I also ripped out this Autumn Fern Mobius. I wasn’t that far into it. It was kind of hard to knit, since the lace pattern didn’t have a purl-back row and I had to pay very close attention. here’s how it looked before I frogged it:I still adore this yarn.  It’s Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere – and while it’s mostly gray, it also has shades of green and blue and purple in it – very moody and subtle. But I don’t want to fight with it. I can make something else instead. I have 2 skeins.Now these two projects are out of my knitting basket and back on the stash shelf. Any suggestions? I’m thinking of making the Canyonlands Shawl with the Smooshy.

While I’m not a strictly monogamous knitter, I feel better having only a few things in progress at any given time. Right now I have the Oak Grove gloves and the Katniss socks. MUCH better. :)