Starting 2009

In the spirit of the little stash down contest going on with some knitting pals, I'm starting the new year on a productive note of projects completed or decisively abandoned. This will be the year of finishing things, I think.
I'm way behind on photos, but here's an update:

• My Emerald cardigan is finished! I made the collar wider with extra short rows, and I gave it 2 buttons instead of just 1.


• My turquoise hat (using Creamy) was just too frustrating, so I gave up. It's nice yarn for something--lace, perhaps--but not for a hat. Knitting with it doubled was like knitting with 2 strands of crochet cotton--no give, no loft, and ready to slip off the needles at a moment's notice. It's a nice enough pattern, but not for that yarn.


• I just finished my take on Jared Flood's Turn a Square hat, only instead of using a classic wool I used Vanna's Choice acrylic in a sort of lime-to-pea-soup green with muted blue stripes.I did it partly to learn how to do the Jogless Join when knitting stripes in the round, so as to be able to apply this approach to my striped pullover, which was not looking the way I had hoped. It worked out well! There was a difficult moment when I realized I had made the hat an inch too long, but by (gasp) cutting off 2 inches, bravely picking up and ribbing down for an inch, I rescued it. It's in the washing machine now so I can see how VC washes before I whip up a baby blanket.