All of that creative energy I’ve been feeling recently, while awesome, has resulted in a lot of projects happening at the same time. I try to be a semi-monogamous knitter but I’m not feeling the pressure to just work on one thing at a time right now and that feels good! Here’s what I’m currently working on this month.
I’ve been working slowly on this project ever since last August. A year ago B took a trip to New York City and brought me back this amazing Cattail Silk from a detour he took over to Purl Soho (he loves me). It is 100% silk, and super gorgeous but not so shiny or smooth. I had originally started knitting the Rue Shawl with this yarn, but the intricate lace was really hard on my hands since the fiber content of this yarn has almost no give or stretch. I frogged it, and started instead with this simple pattern that was paired with Cattail Silk from Purl Soho, and it’s great. The yarn is already starting to bias in the pattern creating a slanted edge that I love. I’m maybe halfway through my first of two skeins and have a feeling I’ll get more and more into this as the weather warms. Hilariously, this would be the perfect wrap for a summer wedding and this is the first summer in years that we have no weddings on the books between May and August. C’est la vie, it will still be lovely. This also gives me hope that maybe someday I’ll be interested in knitting summer tees in linen or cotton yarn, which up to this point I have had absolutely no interest in.
I started this sweater almost immediately after finishing B’s Riddari in February and knit the entire first skein in maybe three days. The combination of squishy, beautiful Brooklyn Tweed Loft and interesting pattern growing on my needles resulted in being completely obsessed from the get-go. I separated the sleeves and started the body just in time to go see our last movie in theaters before self-quarantine started (although, we didn’t know that would be true at the time). I took a break from it the past few weeks to finish up my new nephew’s baby blanket (more on that later) but I am excited to start working on it again despite the complete impracticality of knitting a wooly sweater in April. I’m thinking I will add some length to the body if I have enough yarn to do so, and that this will become an instant classic for me. The colorway here is called “Fossil”.
Beekeeper’s Quilt - The Hexipuffs
Ah, the hexipuffs. These are without a doubt my longest-running project I have ever worked on, going on at least four years of very intermittent knitting on and off. Each puff is extremely adorable, easy to memorize, and takes maybe 30 minutes to knit, but I still cannot seem to get traction with this project even after a month of knitting them every day.
My lack of motivation, upon reflection, I think comes from two things: 1) while each puff is beautiful on its own, I have no idea how these colors are going to work together in the overall blanket, especially considering the mini skeins and sock yarns that I have to add to them. 2) I have no idea what final size I want this quilt to be, and no idea if I even want to use it in my home. These colors are so bright, happy, neon, crazy and are a great little pick-me-up when I actually knit them, but looking around I see no place where these puffs would reasonably live. The process is good, but the final result is not that motivating for me right now.
I almost want to give up on these puffs, I think, to open up new creative energy for other mini-skein projects. I would definitely be open to working on this project again in the future, as I love the pattern and LOVE the finished look of the original design, and I think that truly does come down to the colors. If I ever made this pattern again, I think I would go at it from the angle of choosing the palette ahead of time and purchasing all of the yarn together to make sure it’s cohesive. If you’re interested in adopting this project and the yarn I have devoted to go with it, shoot me an email in my contact form.
Happy knitting!