Epameinondas

I hope you are all having a great holiday season and spending time with your friends, family, and knitting. I've been away for a bit, had my daughter home from school, and will be loading all my files onto this NEW computer today since the old one has really been slogging along for the past month or so and we decided it was time for a switch, so pardon me for any silence you might have noticed. If you are a podcast person, or have some extra time over your break, I have a little clip on the latest episode of Fruity Knitting - they include a video of me and my Widow's Kiss sweater - and their actual guests are June Hemmons Hiatt, the author of Principles of Knitting, and Nan Bray, a sheperdess from Tasmania! The link is below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nk5P47nD3o For those of you following along on my skein to sweater project, I have the yarn in hand and the sketch on my desk, but both the holidays and a sweater that needs to be released earlier have gotten in the way, so...

If you've been following my progress on this, you know I've been in the thinking stage over the past few weeks.  Because once the yarn is chosen, and even when I do have a vague idea, there's still the process of exactly how it will come together.  Last we checked in here on the blog, I mentioned that I had a spring cardigan in mind.  My vision was something easy fitting, casual,  My brain was stuck on the words "cozy" and "bold" - but I still also saw this as being somewhat delicate.  Sometimes I start swatching with a firm idea of what I want to do with a yarn, but this time I was just listening to the Pishkun, with adjectives as my touchstone. When I'm allowed to let creativity rule the process (read that as no deadline ) it's fun to just spin out for a while and try new things. I can get messy and disorganized and distracted, and if I don't find what I want, I get a drink and can start again the next day - until things feel right. I used ...

Two hats, both knit in gorgeous, squishy Yoth Father, and both make quick, easy gifts.  Minero features some beautiful cable details that work themselves into a stunning crown and Coralillo is all about squish and texture!  Each can be knit with a single skein of Father, and both had enough leftover for a pom - although I hesitated to cover up that crown detail on Minero.... I wasn't able to stop after designing just one, so we ended up with two. Pairing colors and making one more was just too fun. You know that hats really are knitting potato chips, right? If you agree, you can get both patterns for $10 on Ravelry with the Ravelry code GIFTHATS2.  This is the same thing I did last year with my Oban and Glenfidditch hats and the code GIFTHATS, and you guys seemed to like that so I figured I should continue the tradition...  ( FYI, neither code will expire, so you can indulge in either set of hats anytime during the year that the urge hits... ) Remember Oban and G...