A Sweater? In June? Welcome to Portland!

One of my most favorite books that I've found (well, in terms of knitting books, anyway) is New England Knits, put out by Interweave.  I love almost every single pattern in this book, and chances are I will be making pretty much all of them. 

The first one that I selected was the Augusta Cardigan... yep.  I started it the last week of June. JUNE!!  We have had a really wet, chilly, and yucky spring here in Portland, and quite honestly, I know I will still get wear out of this sweater this summer.

I chose the Aslan Trends Artesanal cotton/mohair blend for this project, first, well, because it was on sale; but also because (shhhhh) I like cotton.  I know that many of my fellow knitty types don't, because of it's drying effect on the hands, but I like that it dries in half the time, and has a similar worsted-ness as many wools.  I just make sure to keep a bottle of lotion nearby. :)

This was an easy pattern to knit, although, the button banding... I didn't pick up the right number of stitches, and it was fine.  Were I to do it again, I would slip the first stitch, even though it isn't specified to.  I also used 7/8" buttons, as opposed to the 1" buttons that were called for, and I would recommend this.  The buttonholes used are just a YO, and even blocking doesn't make them THAT big. 

I would absolutely knit this again... it would sure be pretty in a dark wine or a forest green color!

A Quick Birthday Present

MONKEYS!  Okay, so it's two days before your nephew's birthday... thankfully you remembered in time... want to make something handmade, but still cool to a five year old (and something that will hopefully be semi-useful, and something that won't last for 15 seconds before he outgrows it...

MOCHI MOCHI to the rescue!!  I got this book a while ago and have been wanting to try nearly everything in it for a long time... this gave me the perfect excuse!  While I didn't use the Cascade, I used Berocco's ReMix (I like the nubby quality, and I thought that it would be appropriate for a little boy) instead, the patterns was simple and easy to follow.  Not to mention, AWESOME!!  Who doesn't like monsters that look like they are eating feet?!?!?

Here's how they came out! And while I think I put the little ears a little too far back, I DO like the buttons instead of the embroidered eyes... :O)