Twists and turns

At Christmas, I got two weeks of no work and no school, so I HAD to knit me something luscious. Wisteria by Kate Gilbert from the Twist Collective and Dream in Color's Classy in Black Parade (Thank you Fulay Little of Little Knits for such fabulous, economical, and personal service) was the perfect project. The pattern was beautiful, the yarn was beautiful (I was inspired by a couple of fabulous Wisterias in just this color on ravelry), and I had time to wallow around in my pajamas all day long.

The cabling was enough to be interesting, and just when I was getting tired of reading a chart, there was a nice soothing swath of plain ole knitting in the round. Then, just as I was getting tired of knitting around and around and around, there were more cables to brighten my day.

The yarn stretched like crazy when I blocked it, but a careful cool tumble dry whipped it back into shape. The pilling is minimal and the sizing was perfect. I added a couple of inches to the length, but in retrospect, I should have done what the directions said. It's a favorite now, sitting on the top of the pile, and I get lots of compliments on it.

The next major project started out as the Hexagon Coat in Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature, but the project was taking too long, so I frogged it and reswatched for a new project.

Left: unblocked; Right: blocked

Classic Elite Skye Tweed. It feels like twine when knitting, but really does bloom and soften beautifully. I had my doubts when other knitters told me about this but took a leap of faith on their word and bought up a bunch of this yarn when it was discontinued. I lucked out and found a fellow raveler with just enough more to enable me to knit the next big project, which I will blog about just as soon as I remember to take pictures of it.