Turmeric

While I seem to enjoy the supposedly boring stockinette stitch more than the average knitter, I have to admit that by the time I was nearing the bottom of the body of this sweater, Turmeric by Veera Välimäki, I'd had enough of it. It just never seemed to end, and each round was only adding a couple of millimeters to the length. But I'm glad I made it to the end, because I'm quite happy with the result. I'm not sure if this is totally flattering to my top-heavy body shape, but, nevertheless, it is a nice design.

And I like the combination of pattern and yarn. It was my first time working with Sivilla from Wetterhoff, and I'm very pleased. The wool and silk blend has a nice drape, and I can see myself using this for both sweaters and shawls in the future. The softness and lightness should make it a good yarn for warm weather items, like a skimpy cardigan.

As usual, my camera was unable to reproduce the correct shade of teal. Some postprocessing later it's a bit closer to the truth, at the price of my face turning green. And the color of the sweater is still not correct.

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Hedera

Probably not my most photogenic pair of socks ever, and not the most fun to knit, either, but I'm still very happy with the finished product. I love the yarn, Malabrigo Sock, and even though I'm not usually a huge fan of blue yarn, this one is gorgeous. In person it looks like bits of black and dark blue mixed together. And it's just the right amount of semi-solid, and, most importantly, soft. These were made to be a pair of bedsocks for myself, so it was important they were very comfortable to wear and not too warm. I think these would make great summer socks, also. The lace pattern makes them well ventilated.

My gauge was surprisingly tight, considering I used 2.5 mm needles, which usually give me maybe 7 stitches per inch. This time it turned out 9 stitches per inch. Luckily the lace pattern is very stretchy, so even the size small at a tight gauge is still a perfect fit. In fact, these are the best fitting pair of socks in a while, maybe ever.

While Hedera is an old Pattern from Cookie A, her new book, Knit. Sock. Love., and the Ravelry KAL inspired by it, made me knit these socks now. The lace pattern was easy to memorize, and I was even able to somewhat watch TV while knitting, but by the second sock I'd had enough of the 4-row repeat and just wanted to have them done as soon as possible. I think that's why I finished them faster than I'd expected. The repetition of the lace pattern was not helped by the fact that I decided to continue it down the heel flap (because I still don't like reinforced heels). While I enjoy the actual activity of knitting, I'm still the most satified with a finished project.

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Laurel

Every once in a while I'm extremely happy with a finished project. This is one of those rare times.

I first queued Jared Flood's Laurel pattern when it was published more than a year ago. I didn't have access to the original pattern booklet, so I had to wait until it became available as a PDF in April 2010. Around this time I bought and downloaded it. Then at some point I changed my mind and dropped it from my queue until recently when I, for a reason I don't remember, again decided I wanted to knit it, anyway. One of the reasons probably was that I thought it might look good in the grey Berroco Ultra Alpaca I bought on my Canada trip.

Fairly early on I noticed a couple of errors in the pattern that were not mentioned in the official errata. I don't believe I was the first person to notice, though, since this hat has already been knit hundreds of times by other people. The errors were nothing I couldn't figure out on my own, though. Despite being very cable (and bobble) heavy, I found it a very enjoyable project. Even if the most heavily cabled rows took me half an hour each to complete. I did most of the cables without a cable needle, expect the cable that asks for two cables needles. With that one I used one cable needle and did part of it without (put the first two stitches on a cable needle, knit the next three without, then knitted the two off the CN). I'm not sure if my bobbles look exactly the way they are supposed to, but I think they are OK.

Originally I was going to block this to a tam shape. But when I tried on the unblocked hat, I liked the slightly loose beanie style so much I decided to keep it that way. I just wetblocked it on a flat surface, no stretching instruments, only a little pulling here and there with my fingers while it was drying. I can always reblock it later, but I figured it's easier to go from a beanie to a tam than vice versa.

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Eggplant Beret

My second time knitting Laura Chau's lightweight raspberry beret pattern, and I don't think this was the last time. Sometimes I really just want to go for some simple stockinette. And since I made a vow not to buy new yarn in January, I dug up some old Ohut Pirkkalanka by the local Pirkanmaan Kotityö Oy, a yarn that comes in tens of colors (I even have their color card now, which officially makes me a knitting geek).

I joined a group called 11 hats in 2011 on Ravelry, since it looks like this will be a hat heavy year for me, anyway. I have several other hat patterns lined up already. Right now I have Jared Flood's Laurel on the needles.

The Ravelry project page.

Norie

My second finished project of the year was the perfect opportunity to "test" the new tripod I bought for myself for Christmas. My old tripod, which will still be useful, as well, due to its much smaller size and lighter weight, was a problem when taking pictures of hats. If I stood up for the pictures, the angle would be too low, since the maximum height of the tripod is less than my height (which isn't really that much to begin with). So, I finally went and bought a tripod that goes up to at least 180 cm, which should be more than enough for me, and it also has a nice ballhead that allows practically any position for the camera you might want. The only downsides are that it's quite large and heavy, and not very easy to carry around in a snowy forest, for example, but at least for short distances I can manage.

The project itself is the Norie pattern from Gudrun Johnston's The Shetland Trader. A fast and easy knit, although my yarn choice, Rowan Felted Tweed, kind of hides the lace pattern. Otherwise, I think the yarn and pattern are a good match, since Felted Tweed is so pleasantly lightweight. I think I'd like to try it on a sweater some time. To be able to take the pictures I wanted today in adequate daylight (which isn't so easy this time of year here, when the sun sets just after 3 pm and makes it hard to take pictures on work days), I did a sort of a high-speed blocking: I pulled a dry hat over a balloon, sprayed just the top of it with water, because I didn't want to stretch the brim, shaped the crown flat and then used a blowdryer to dry it. This worked out pretty well.

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Garter Yoke Cardigan (The Pea Soup Version)

The first finished project of the year did not turn out quite as perfectly as I expected. This was my second time knitting the Garter Yoke Cardigan by Melissa LaBarre. I knit the first one for my mom over a year ago, and made notes what kind of adjustments I would make if I ever knit it for myself. However, that was not enough to make a 100% successful fit this time, either. Upon switching to a larger needle I also ended up with a yoke that's too loose, while now the lower body is a good fit, the opposite of last time.

The yarn is part of my Canada trip stash haul. I've knit with Berroco Ultra Alpaca before, and found it to be one of my all time favorite yarns, with the problem that it's not sold in Finland. So, I took advantage of my visit to North America and bought it in three different colors, enough for at least two sweaters and several accessories. The yarn didn't disappoint this time, either, and I also like this color a lot. This particular colorway was actually purchased in two separate yarn stores, and each of them only had 2-3 skeins of it, combined enough to knit a whole sweater. This is my favorite yarn for sweaters, and it's also great for hats, and probably colorwork mittens, as well.

The Ravelry project page