Mother's Day Knitting: Some FOs and Some Cast Ons

Last week I had a perfectly lovely Mother's Day. At my request, we had a leisurely brunch at the neighborhood pool so I could eat a mountain of French toast, watch my toddler splash, and knit.

New Projects

This year I took part in the Prairie Girls Knit and Spin Podcast Mother's Day Cast On - and it turned out to work for my own Knit-along that I'm running, the Graduate Your Stash KAL. (Please join us! It's fun! There are prizes!) I found my oldest yarn, 1.5 skeins of Davidson Domy Heather in the Columbine color that I bought at MD Sheep and Wool in 2005, and cast on the Green River Shawl. The only problem with really old yarn? Greater likelihood of moth damage! Eek!The Green River Shawl by maanel is a free download from Ravelry, and so far, the instructions are great. To find it, I used Ravelry's Advanced Search feature to look for a pattern that called for 600-750 yards of fingering weight yarn, single-color, in my library or available for download (for instant gratification!). I also knew the yarn was hand-wash, so I ruled out socks or baby items. Finally I decided I was in a shawl mood and picked the one that spoke to me at that moment. Voila! Green River gets cast on! To track my participation in these KALs, I've been labeling the photos and my Ravelry project page with #GraduateYourStashKAL and #MothersDayCastOn2015.Also on the same weekend, I cast on a couple sweaters that will be gifts. (More details about them in future blog posts, just so I don't spoil any surprises.) I've said before that I'm a monogamous knitter by nature, so casting on three things in two days, in addition to the socks I already had on the needle was an adrenaline rush that left be a little disoriented. True to form, after that flurry of casting on, I... finished the socks, then worked exclusively on one of the sweaters for a week. Hrrmm. I tried.

Finished Objects

The socks I finished were a Mother's Day present for my mom. These were the Zigzagular Socks by Susie White, a free Ravelry download. They were designed to give your brain just a little something extra while still being fairly mindless to knit. They work well in solid, tonal, variegated, and probably self-striping yarn. You can see all sorts of versions in the Prairie Girls' Ravelry group. Mine were knit out of Countess Ablaze Countess of Mohair yarn (55% Merino, 25% Nylon, 20% Mohair) in the To the Gods Immortal and Everlasting colorway. I thought when I bought this in her online shop that the socks would have more pink, but they're mostly white and green with tiny flashes of pink. My mother had seen the yarn and knew they would be socks for her (because once upon a time she asked for mohair socks), but she didn't know which pattern or when. I showed her the socks (one complete, one missing a toe) over FaceTime on Mother's Day and will be mailing them to her tomorrow.Finally (or first, since this post has been going in reverse chronological order), I finished the Scalloped Shawl by Breean Elyse Miller. This was in the Malabrigo Book Three that my siblings bought me for my birthday, and I used leftover Malabrigo Sock (the yarn called for in the pattern - what a novelty!) in the Natural and Cordovan colors. I had used this yarn to knit Border Socks for my husband for Christmas, so using the scrap yarn made this project count for the Down Cellar Studio Spring Cleaning KAL, where you knit with scraps. This was my first shawl ever in 10+ years of knitting, and I clearly enjoyed it, since I've already cast on another. I'm not sure that I'm the type to *wear* shawls, though, so most of these will probably become gifts. This one became a Mother's Day gift for my mother-in-law, who is the most knitworthy person ever and is always cold. :)