Despite overnight freeze warnings, spring has finally sprung here! Trees and grass are green, skies are blue, teenagers are out in shorts and t-shirts even when they’re turning blue with cold…it’s definitely spring. At my house, spring means hauling out the old Grass Hog and ravaging around my tiny yard like a short, dumpy Gorgon, until it looks like a clear-cut section of the Amazon rain forest. Take that, weeds.
Spring also means it’s sweater-washing time, and I have (obviously) lots of sweaters. My house smells like wet wool and lavender Eucalan, and every flat surface has a damp sweater on it. As mornings stay cold, my wardrobe shrinks – can’t wear this one because it’s been washed and brushed, can’t wear this one because it’s still too cold for an openwork cardigan. Still, I like this time of year, when the weather changes every day, before it just gets unrelentingly hot, hot, hot.
Even with yard work, sinus issues, and being lazy, I still find some time to knit, and have decided to re-discover some of the old free patterns we did back in the dark ages when you had to take a roll of film someplace to get it developed before you knew if you had a decent photo. It was a lot of trouble and took time and money, so you didn’t just take a couple of pictures, you used the whole roll. Anyway, it was a lot for a free pattern, so often they don’t have pictures and I don’t remember what they looked like in real life. I’m re-discovering and it’s kind of fun to knit them up and see what’s what.
This is the first one I just finished, a cute little scarf with a ruffle:
It’s knit sideways in garter stitch, then the ruffle stitches are picked up and increased. It’s a cute accessory, sort of like a Sophie with a little more pizzazz. The yarn I used was a hand-painted version of a nice organic cotton, a great summer yarn, and I’m putting it on sale for a while. This scarf just takes one skein, unless you would like to make a bigger version. This little baby sweater also takes just one skein:
And we have all these pretty colors in stock:
I want to mention that we still have room in our beginner lace shawl class – it starts this Saturday. If you want to get comfortable with making holes in your knitting on purpose, this is a great starting project. With one skein of beautiful fingering weight yarn, you’ll have a pretty and useful accessory for all time. This is the kind of versatile piece that takes the place of jewelry on a cold winter’s morning and will help to keep you warm all day. Trust me, I know, because the shop is cold all winter and, luckily, I have many shawls to choose from, and these small shawls are the ones I gravitate toward because they’re just enough!
Onward to the next unknown project, a summer poncho. Is it cute, is it ridiculous? We’ll find out!
