freeform child sweater

I'm hoping to complete a little sweater for Emma for Christmas. The yarns have been sitting around, I chose them a while ago. Here are a few bits that I've started. So far, I haven't made a garment with the freeform style because it's just kind of intimidating. But a child's sweater seems like a good way to start. After I get a few more pieces done, I'll cut out a paper pattern to fit Emma, then start arranging the pieces.

monkeys invade Wilmington

These little monkeys were ready for a day of shopping in Wilmington, NC on Friday. The purple Jitterbugs are mine, and the blue Discos are my mom's. I think the monkeys made our feet happy during all that walking!

freeform workshop at Cozy

Last night I taught a freeform workshop at Cozy, and the 5 ladies in the class really did a great job. In the 3 hour workshop, we made scrumbles following my instruction sheet. That doesn't sound very freeform, I know, but all it takes is a little guidance to get started freeforming, then people just take off. Even though everyone had the same instructions, you can see that each piece shows the personality of the artist.

It may be hard to differentiate between all of the scrumbles because I shoved them close together for the picture, but starting at the lower right corner and working clockwise we have Diane's lovely mix of browns and blues, Martha's expert blend of fall colors, Carol's highly textured greens and purples, Jane's delicate garden colors with pastels and purples, and Dare's fabulous monochromatic collection of greens.

In these workshops I don't usually spend any time talking about combining colors because there's just so much other information to get through, but this group seemed to have a excellent sense of using colors together already. The photos really don't do the pieces justice, but I think they made very artistic choices with their yarns.

I look forward to seeing what these ladies do with freeform in the future!

more hats

The hats, they just keep coming! These are for Ben (the red) and Baylee (the orange), and hopefully sized appropriately. I used the Yarn Harlot's general sizing information from her book "Knitting Rules." I think they'll work.....

another hat

Love, love, love this yarn. It's the chunky weight Malabrigo merino wool. I wanted to make one more hat for Judy--a girl needs a little variety, after all. Last night I cast on, and this morning I finished it up. The pattern is Margaret Urban's, written especially for Chunky Malabrigo (one hank only!) and is available at Cozy free when you purchase the yarn.
Both hats (this one and the navy one from the last post) will be mailed to Aunt Judy today.

couple of small things

So in the past few days I've finished this navy blue hat for Aunt Judy,



these half-finger gloves for Randy,


and started this unusual scarf for a shop model at Cozy. Gift knitting continues!







Edit: Tracy points out, and rightly so, that I didn't give any details about these projects, so here goes. The hat is just a basic "make-it-up-as-you-go-along" sort of thing. The gloves are from Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick. The scarf is from Norah Gaughan's Berocco booklet from this season called something like Urban Stories. Lots of cool things in there. The scarf is called Luce, and it calls for Pure Merino Nuance, but I'm using Malabrigo Merino Worsted because it's so yummy. Nothing against PM Nuance.