FO: Daybreak shawl

My blogging mojo had disappeared for a while but I finished a shawl the other day and managed to get some photos of it:

Pattern: Daybreak by Stephen West
Yarn: Cascade Venezia Worsted
Needle: 5.5 mm
My project page

(Modelled by my lovely sister, who is also wearing a hat I recently knit but never blogged about.)


The pattern was fun and simple.  I knit a small size but on much bigger needles; the end result is just a tad bit small for me to wear as a shawl but as you see it totally works for a more petite person.  I plan to give this to my mom, maybe for Christmas?

And this yarn may be my new favorite.  I loved knitting it, and love the way it feels knit up.  Squishy and smooth. The blend is 70% merino and 30% silk.  I'm thinking I will knit my next sweater out of the stuff.

Breakup time

 Sometimes we have to realize that things just aren't working out.  I love the idea of these mittens, but the second one is a totally different size than the first.  And the finished one has its own problems.

Not being sure what to do about these f$%^* things means that I haven't touched them in a while.  I finally realized that I had to move on - I pulled the needles out and will use them to cast on another pair of mittens with different yarn and a different pattern.  The hemming and hawing over this pair has put me very far behind my goal of 11 pair of mittens this year, it's time to cut losses.

 Meanwhile, I've been working on a Daybreak shawl, using stash yarn.  It's Cascade Venezia Worsted,a blend of merino wool and silk, and I love this yarn.  I'm knitting on pretty big needles so I'm hoping to get a good size shawl out of the two skeins that I have.

 I've also started a plain sock for my mom.  I didn't realize it at the time, but I think the Easter-y colors are what prompted me to cast on. I'll likely still be knitting on these in the summer heat though, when the colors will not suit the season so well.

Now that I'm back in a temperate zone, I'm really enjoying the spring, and the transformation taking place in my area.  Like much of the US, it's been raining for weeks but there have been a couple clear days here and there when I've been able to do some yardwork.  A couple weeks ago I came across this in a flowerpot left outside over the winter:

 Those are 5 cute little birds' eggs in there.  Needless to say I won't be planting anything in this pot. I checked up on the nest over the weekend and here's how they are doing now:

Nothing brightens my day like baby animals.