…and we’re back!

10 November 2013 · by · in ,

It’s not often in our adult lives (in America anyway) we really truly get to take a significant break from our day-to-day. When I paused my blog updates back in August, I had a lot of big projects going on, both at work and at home, and I felt that I was rapidly running out of summertime to enjoy. I reprioritized my free time and decided the 365 Days of Pattern project could take a little break while things wrapped up (at least at work), and I thought I’d be back in a month.

Well, that turned into three months, and I’m not the least bit sad about it. While I was out:

  • The big work project (which was pretty much an entire year of stressing out) went live and was overall a big success!
  • I got a promotion! Then I was lucky enough to be able to take three entire weeks off in October (aka Volktober) before starting in my new position. As someone who has never even taken a two-week vacation before: this was just incredible and I’m incredibly thankful I was able to do this. I’ll share more on that later.
  • And if that weren’t enough exciting work-related news, I also entered and won an employee wrapping paper design contest! The design is (of course) holiday sweater themed. It’s hard not to be excited about this one, because it means I get to share two things I love (patterns and knitting) with a bunch of new people in a very tangible way.
  • My band, The Telephone Line, played their first gig! I played piano and guitar growing up, and learning to play bass and write original songs with some of my favorite people has been just unspeakably awesome.
  • I sold my first few items over on Society6! Speaking of which, they have an improved tote bag design (which means my patterns are now seamless and cover the whole bag) and they  now offer mugs. I’m looking forward to offering some new designs soon.

And then there’s the knitting, which has been constant throughout:

worsted socks

On vacation, I needed something relatively brainless to work on while hanging around at the beach. I picked up two skeins of  Classic Elite’s Liberty Wool and worked up these toe-up worsted socks, I think on size US 4 needles. I’ve been meaning to make myself a pair of superwash worsted socks for a long time and these are just great. Winter, I am ready for you.

pinksocks

And before that, I’d finished these other stockinette socks in this Farmhouse Yarns Fannie’s Fingering Weight in Fall Flowers (although my skein looks pretty different from others in the same colorway I’ve seen). I picked this yarn up about a year ago and had swatched it up in a lot of different patterns before I decided stockinette was the best choice. The variation between almost-neon pink and almost-back shades of green and blue made other stitch patterns just get lost.

neon ombre scarf

And my favorite knit so far this year: a honeycomb brioche ombre circle scarf. I’m in love with the two-tone honeycomb stitch but unfortunately the edges curl like mad. I still get compliments on it, but I might try adding another layer of fabric on the wrong side to help show off the right side of the fabric. The yarn is Ella Rae Lace Merino DK, one skein each of the neon pink and neutral (not sure of exact color names). It’s long enough to wrap around my neck 2 – 3 times and adds just the right amount of neon in my opinion. This might be destined for a future pattern if I can solve the curling issue.