Pattern: This is my own pattern, but the colorwork pattern is from Fallmasche’s Strandlaeufer (Sandpiper) cowl. (Cowl pattern is free Ravelry download.)

Yarn: 2 skeins Anny Blatt’s Lady Blatt yarn, from our honeymoon, from The Bon Marche, in Paris.

Needles: I’m not sure—I’m too lazy to check, I’m guessing probably a size 5, 16″ circs.

Project begun/ended: My ability to note when I have started and finished projects has totally declined. I think it took me about three weeks to knit, but I managed to lose it (in my house!) for a while in there. So I probably started it in December and finished it last week.

Notes: By the time I found the hat again, I forgot what yarn I was leading with, so on the bottom of the hat, the dark blue is leading, and on the top, the light blue is leading. An interesting compare and contrast of the importance of yarn leadership in colorwork.

I also didn’t change needle sizes between the colorwork and the stockinette, which I think was a mistakes. Should have gone up 1 or 2 sizes for the colorwork. Laziness. It gets you in the end.

I was thinking of putting a pompom on it, but then Adam pointed out I have lost every hand-knit hat that has a pompom. So.

Also, I realize that my honeymoon was sufficiently long ago enough that this is a crazy name. (And that, in between then and now, I even went on a second honeymoon! With the same husband. We called it Honeymoon 2: Electric Bugaloo.) but I did get this yarn on my honeymoon, so it has nice memories.

Adam, said husband, was all like, “How is that hat honeymoon-ish?” (Since we went in the summer, I guess.) And I’m like, it’s like the sea!! And he was like “Okay, I guess, I can see that.”

Photo from my honeymoon, taken by said husband. This is along the Normandy coastline, inside a lookout point called Cabane Vauban.

I know I always say I’m going to try to blog more, but I don’t, so I have decided to embrace a blogging-as-much-as-I-feel-like-philosophy. Voila.

Pattern: Staccato Cowl, my own. I’ll detail how to make it below.

Yarn: Jade Sapphire, Angelwing Sport, 200 yards, 100% cashmere. I had a $20 gift certificate to Purl from my NYU Business School creativity project thing, and this was on sale. I think I paid an additional $12, so I think it was $32. The price tag says $46—yikes! Cashmere! I think it was about 30% off.

Needles: Clover 5, 16″ circs.

Project begun/ended: I think I made this in a month or so, just in time for the East Coast’s freak October snowstorm!

How to make:

Gauge: 5 stitches = 1″ in stockinette

1.) Cast on 105 stitches with a long-tail cast on.

2.) Join, make sure not to twist. Place marker.

3.) k1, *p1,k2,* repeat until the last 2 stitches, p1, k1

4.) repeat round 3

5.) *p2, k1* repeat until the end

6.) repeat round 5

7.) k all

8.) k all

9.) repeat rounds 3 through 8 until you run out of yarn. End on one of the non-knit-all rounds.

10.) Do some sort of sewn bind-off.

It is named Staccato because it has a staggered rib, like the way staccato sounds. On a semi-related note, I read that Rick Perry’s favorite movie is Immortal Beloved, which I saw in the movie theater, and is a semi-ridiculous bio-pic of Beethoven, starring Gary Oldman and a lot of hair. I find this a very weird choice for Rick Perry, but who knows? The power of Ludwig is great.

So, here’s my annual round-up of what I knit during the previous year. I didn’t knit Adam anything in 2010 (insert sad face), but I did get married to him, so he has many more years of suffering through knitted projects. HAHAHA.

From top to bottom, left to right, the projects are:

Garter Yoke Cardigan
Cashmere Tweed Ithacowl
Honeymoon Shawl
Scrappy Monet Mitts
Felicity Hat
Lemondrop Socks

I didn’t knit as much as I would like, probably because I became totally sucked into wedding planning and now am having wedding withdrawal. I am dealing with my wedding withdrawal by (a) offering to plan the weddings of strangers, with, as one stranger said, “the look of crazy in my eye” and (b) making the most comprehensive photobook of all time. I may write a post about photobook services later this month, which I hope will be helpful to other people trying to figure out which service to use. Anyway, I loved our wedding and our honeymoon, but now I am moving back into regular life, including lots of knitting.

I also started a new job at the end of last year, which means that I commute regularly again, which means more knitting and reading time. When I am at home, I always feel I should be doing something else.

I don’t have any real specific goals for 2011, except knitting more, which shouldn’t be too hard, since I only knit six things this year.

Pattern: My own. I cast on 108 stitches with a provisional cast-on with the smaller needle, knit 12 rounds, knit a purl round, switched to larger needles, knit another 12 rounds, undid the provisional cast-on so the stitches were live, knit the two rounds together with the second color and then knit 10 rounds of the second color (yellow), then 12 of the first color (blue), rinse and repeat. Decrease the top away, by dividing the total amount of stitches by 6, pm, knit 2tog every marker, knit one round plain, repeat decrease and plain round until you are satisfied. Also towards the end I started decreasing every round.

Yarn: Silky Malabrigo in blue and yellow from Imagiknit in San Francisco. I think I bought this in 2009, when I went to my friend’s wedding in September 2009. I love this yarn! It looks beautiful in stockinette and has a slight sheen and is super soft. Above is one of my favorite photos from that wedding that one of the guests took. The light is gorgeous!

Needles: Number 3 Knitpicks and I think a number 4 or 5 Addi Natura.

This is Ithacowl around my neck.

Project begun/ended: I think I started this in the beginning of December and finished at the end. So it took about a month.

Notes: I never watched Felicity, the television show, but I believe that she had a hat kind of like this. I saw everyone wearing these slouchy hats, and I wanted one, too. The color scheme was inspired by this random old French movie Diva (which the protagonist in High Fidelity considers one of his top five movies). I don’t remember a lot about this movie except that the titular diva had a very ornate sitting room done up in shades of yellow and blue on the wall, which I admired. Also, that there was a chase scene in a sketchy Paris bowling alley, which I think I’ve actually bowled at.

Pattern: Smaragdi Mittens, by Liisa Lallukka. Free. [Ravelry link.]

Yarn: The main color is Frog Tree light fingerling alpaca in light blue, from The Yarn Tree, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Left over from my sister’s helmet hat, I had 1.2 skeins left over. It takes about .2 skeins for each mitt, so even if you had half a skein, you would probably be okay. I think at the time I bought it, it sold for $6. It now seems to sell for $6.80.

The contrast yarns are all leftovers, from bottom up. I’m not going to link, but if you want to see the original projects, just type the name of the project into search. I’m lazy, deal.

Greenish (cuff and 1st row) – Sundara FSM, from Honeymoon Shawl
Greenish/blue (2nd row) – Koigu, from Berkeley socks
Blueish-pink (3rd and 4th rows) – Traveling Rhinos, from Swirl socks
Burgundy (5th row) – Fleece Artist, from Burgundy Shawl
Hot pink (6th row) – Bonkers Handmade Originals, from Flamingo socks
Orange/green/blue (7th row) – Happy Hands Yarns Toe Jamz, from Loud Monkey socks

Needles: Size 1 and what I thought were 2, but my needle gauge also says are 1s. So maybe 1 and 1.5 DPNs.

The photos above show the mitts with the contrast side as the decorative motif and the one below show the side with the pale blue as the decorative motif, with the contrast colors showing as bands of color behind.

Project begun/ended: October 16, 2010-November 28, 2010. Each mitt took a week to knit, but I procrastinated in between mitts and blocking and weaving in ends.

Notes and modifications: I knit fingerless mitts instead of mittens–I did a row of purl stitches, knit a hem (should have knit a few stitches less to reduce bunching when folding over), folded over, and tacked down. My gauge was fine for fingerless mitts, but too tight for mittens.

The main modification I did was to use up sock scraps for the contrast color to create an ombre effect. Also, I reversed the patterns on the front and back (the mirror images) on each mitten so that the patterns would match when I wear them.

And for fair isle fans, the insides. Gorgeous, no? I recently saw a J.Crew sweater that had the fair isle inside as the outside. Looks woven and very modern. Especially love the thumbs.

You can see how I had some puckering issues on the hem.

One side.

And the other.  Isn’t Central Park in Fall gorgeous?

Starting the second mitt.

And here’s a random photo of a creepily decorated ghost cookie. I went over to my friend’s house to decorate cookies (she is a professional pastry chef, hence the high quality of the base cookies). The odd decoration is all mine.

Anyway, when we were on our honeymoon we went to see Monet’s water lillies at the Musee de la Orangerie and they were truly spectacular (they were actually at Gagosian in New York earlier this year, but we didn’t have a chance to visit). When you see them huge and up close, they are incredibly emotional and moving in a way that cannot be conveyed by the coffee cups and other tchotchkes.

Here’s a photo that Adam took on our honeymoon:

This is a long warm up to say that I think my new mittens seem kind of…dare I say Monet-esque? I know, every two-bit knitting designer describes their creation as inspired by Monet. And then you look at their project and you’re like, “whoa, that is the ugliest pastel bit of knitting vomit ever.” Well, I know, but there is a nice play of color on these mittens. (The front and the back are reverse fair isle of each other.)

Should I make them fingerless mitts as I first planned or mittens?

Here’s my bag of fingerling weight sock and shawl scraps, left over from my socks and shawls. It’s so inspiring! I thought to myself, if only I had some fingerling weight solid to do some fair isle in. Guess what? I looked in my Bin of Stash, and I have a whole ball, plus maybe 20% of another ball of light blue alpaca, left over from the hood hat I made my sister. I am chugging along on these really cool mittens–photos to come tomorrow of the work in progress.

Yarn: Sundara Fingerling Silky Merino, color: The Life Aquatic. This is from a Seasons subscription that I had in 2008-2009. Sundara is kind of a crazy cult yarn that is hard to get–Seasons was a thing where you paid her every month and then every other month you received a batch of yarn. You didn’t get to pick the colors, only a “season” of colors (I had winter). Anyway, you can get skeins of it from her website. It currently runs $40-$50 a skein. The website says you get 500 yards, but I think its significantly more. I had quite a bit left over.

Needles: Size 5 Lace Addis.

Project begun/ended: April 2010-October 2010. Only seven months.

Notes and modifications: I knit the medium size, and then I knit 40 rows of the garter stitch chart (chart 3) instead of 24. I was going to knit 48, but I ran out of steam. So it’s somewhere between a medium and a large. It’s a straightforward pattern though it’s not very intuitive.

This yarn is billed as a semi-solid, but mine was pretty variegated, so I wanted something with a lot of garter stitch that didn’t compete too heavily with the colors.

I don’t think anyone ever wears their shawl like this, but it seems to be required to show you the full knitting and shape. My body looks weirdly out of proportion here but I think it has to do with the angle at which it was shot.

I like to wear my triangle shawls like this, so it’s more scarf-y and less old lady.