Warm Feelings

This week was for starting on a new sweater for myself and hanging out knitting with my sister.

The sweater pattern is Sawyer, featured in the BT Men Vol. 2 lookbook. I like all the sweater patterns in this collection, but this particular one jumped out at me. Thanks to a generous gift card for Hill Country Weavers that I received from dear friends upon becoming a gentleman of a certain age, I was able to get the suggested Brooklyn Tweed Shelter for this project. And, because I thought the particular shade used in the lookbook sample was pleasing to the eye and jibed with my palette, I went with that, too. So the sometimes agonizing worrying over choosing the right fiber and color was easily taken care of.

However, this stitch pattern, while easy to execute and memorize, is a bear if you drop a stitch. Every other stitch is knitted into the stitch below the needle on the right side in order to get the thick textured effect. But woe be unto you if you wander off pattern. It's really hard to fix. At least four times I've noticed a spot a few rows below where I've repeated a stitch and thrown off the whole diagonal effect. I can't seem to figure out how to correct these with a crochet hook without the diagonal pattern looking broken and weird afterwards. I just have to tink back and start over. But on the upside, I am getting a bit better about paying attention to what I'm doing.

Today, I did what I resolved a few posts back and got together with my sister to practice knitting. It was fun to sit and give her tips -- seeing her instinctively do the same things that I did as a beginner knitter. She's a natural continental knitter (yay!) and she knocked out several ridges of respectable garter stitch as we sat and chatted about family, school, work, our families, our dogs. Our Christmas gift to each other is to make time to get together and do more of what we did today. I'm excited to think about what she'll do with knitting. Oh, and our oldest nephew hung out with us too, just back from his first semester in college. He seemed to be settling in to the swing of things quite well.

Next week we'll be off to see my brother's family for Christmas in Germany, with a little side trip around the New Year. Hopefully, I'll have some knitterly news to post while we're there.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone! Here's hoping you have something handknit to keep you warm and fond memories of time spent with those you love.