My Love Note. 💕 It took me a wee while to jump on the bandwagon, but when I realized I had the yarn already in my stash and knowing Love Note would be a quickie, I did jump. The pattern IS a quickie for sure and very easy. The lace bit is a snap and would be ok for a beginner. I was in between a 34" and 38"; what I wanted was a perfect 36". I did not want the lace to stretch across my bust so had to have some positive ease but didn't want an oversized look either. I also did not want the lace to go down into the bust area. I cast on for a 38" and used the following modifications to achieve a 36".

The gauge was 16 sts. per 4" and by changing my gauge to 20 sts. per 4" I was able to tighten up the pattern (and tighten up the fabric too which I prefer). I also cast on less stitches at the sleeve separation. The neck is worked last. The sweater is knit top-down with a provisional cast on. When the sweater is finished, you pick up the neck stitches and customize away, creating a wide neck or crew neck or anything in between. To achieve a crew neck I knit two rounds, then worked a few sets of German short rows at the back to raise the back neck, then knit a few more rounds making decreases (at first I made too many and I couldn't get it over my head!) then knit my k1, p1 ribbing. I was chilly when I was knitting the neck and felt I wanted my neck to be nice and warm. If I decide later to make it a bit more open and wide, it will be an easy fix. I'll wear it a time or two before I decide. I also added length to the sleeves and body.

As per pattern I held two yarns together, a lace weight and a fingering weight. The lace was a frothy strand of Rowan Kidsilk Haze in Cream. The fingering was Tusken Knits Fife in the pinky color, Cordelia. It has waves of mottled color with splotches of a blacky-brown. Adding the KSH softened the colors and gave the fabric a hazy pink sky effect. The two worked beautifully together, but then again, adding KSH to any yarn is a good thing! 

Sending love out to my readers. I hope you are having a good good day! xo Kristen

my Ravelry project page

purchase Love Note pattern by Tin Can Knits here or here

purchase Tusken Knits Yarn here

Below is also from my stash, a lovely DK weight from Rowan that I will knit Le Marche des Artistes, a new pattern from Stella Egidi. This is not really a contender as I haven't actually started it yet and I don't think I will for a while, but I wanted to show it to you!

Below is Poet by Sari Nordland using some gorgeous Biches and Buches Le Petite Lambswool. The entire sweater is covered in the most beautiful lace pattern. It's a project I pick up when it's quiet and I have time to concentrate and can simply enjoy the process of knitting. It's definitely an "alone" project so not a contender for noisy Super Bowl Sunday.

I  jumped on the bandwagon of Kaffe's new striped shawl. No pattern in hand, just taking my own stab at it using my stash of Felted Tweed with some purchased brights. This is knit entirely in garter stitch so this will be my project to knit in the dark when we go to the movies or my project to knit whenever I want a burst of happy color in my life. This will be an enormous shawl or a happy picnic blanket. I adore knitting garter with Felted Tweed. I imagine it will take years to make. No hurry. And guess what? I don't think I have enough yarn!

As for our Super Bowl Sunday food, we are having an unconventional (but husband approved) buffet of spiced nuts, avocado, shrimp and cucumber salad, and lettuce wraps with spicy Korean beef. Can you tell we are trying to lose some holiday weight around here? 💪 We are having some guests so I think my husband is going to break down and buy some wings from the deli as a nod to having at least one traditional football food. 

Today is the most adorable wash day ever! Muddy cuffs on every sleeve. Purple paint. White frosting. Grass stains. Dried up crud of something, maybe batter or play doh? It made me laugh to see the remnants of his busy week all over his sweaters. 💗 Super grammy got it all out.

Very soon I'll be starting a monthly series called A Year In The Garden where I'll show you just what's going on month to month in my Northern California garden. I had such high hopes for this series, but then January just got away from me! On to February!

Go Niners!