Wrapping up 2012 Knits (and crochets)

January 31st! It's the end of the first month of the year and I'm still not through posting stuff I made in December. I cannot drag this out any longer. I'm gonna wrap it up today.

This is Arabella by Nicky Hale knit up in Tahki Cotton Classic.  It was such a learning experience and it really ought to have it's own post but I'll try to keep this short and sweet.

I have a friend who's having a rough time and she loves collars like this one so when I saw this pattern I was determined to make it for her which meant chasing down the UK publication it appeared in, The Knitter. In the future I'll hopefully know to watch out for crochet patterns from abroad.  I tried to make this 3 times before I realized that UK & US crochet terms mean different things.  What we call single crochet - they call double crochet, what we call double crochet - they call treble crochet, etc.  You can see where this would be a problem.  As I said - lesson learned.

The second issue was the yarn.  It's lovely and it looks great with the beads and the stitch pattern.  What it doesn't do is drape.  I'm sure that if I had used a nice wool it would've been fabulous.  I'm so sure of this that I bought some wool to use to prove my point.  I just need the beads and the time.  Watch for it.



This is Autobahn by Kate Gilbert in Shepherd's Wool Worsted.  Not a whole lot to say about this because the pattern and the yarn were just perfect. 



Small story though so in the absence of true knitting discussion here it is.  Bruce came home from work one cold December day and told me that he wore his entrelac  scarf and a friend admired it and commented that he was lucky that his wife knits.  Awwwww....

And Bruce is so pleased to tell me this.  It's really nice to have a family who loves my hand knits and shows them off proudly.  I appreciate it more than words can say so when my husband suggests that he really thinks his friend would love a hand knit hat I say sure.  I troll Rav for the perfect pattern and I buy a yarn that's nice but not budget busting.  And to my daughters chagrin, I push aside other projects to do a quick hat.  'Cause  hats are instant gratification.



Now he tells me that his friend loves the hat.  The color is great!  The pattern is great!  It's so nice and warm! 

And he'd really love one in grey.

Yarn has been bought. But he's a little further down in the queue this time.



And that's it. Onward to 2013.