FO; Neck Warmers

I made three, count em', three, of these neck warmers. I made one for myself and the other two as gifts for a couple of friends. The yarn is Burly Spun by Brown Sheep, and it's a really fun yarn to knit with. I used two skeins for the 3 scarves, and I have enough to make one more slightly narrower and shorter one. Each one takes very little time to knit.

I used my favorite reversible stitch pattern over 14 stitches:
K1, *K2, YO, K2tog, repeat from *, K1 on every row, and slipping the first K1 on each row.

Happy New Year to all of you out in the blogophere, and I wish you all a great 2012!

FO: Leaving

I FINALLY finished Leaving, from Twist Collective Winter 2010. I started it at the beginning of the year (I think), and stopped when the weather got warm. I picked it up again a couple of months ago but progress was slow, partly because I got bored with it. The pattern calls for the panels on both the front and back, and the stitches involve some knits and purls through the back loop, which can be tedious. The yarn is Valley Yarns Northfield hand-dyed, which I really like. My sweater had to withstand a lot of handling because it took so long to knit and the yarn is very elastic and durable. It's also very comfortable against the skin.

I started this so long ago that I'm not sure I remember what mods I made. I do know that I changed the shape from a-line to a low empire, which is what I always do with a-line shapes. I also made it a couple of inches longer than the pattern's length. I'm not that fond of full length sleeves, but in this case, I really like having the full sleeve length with the stitch pattern.

I really like the lace panels on this sweater, and it fits well enough, but I think I'm not going to knit any more fitted pullovers that have one central vertical panel down the front. If the sweater has negative ease, the panel will always stretch too wide at the bust line, and I dislike that look. I think it gives this illusion of top heaviness. The drape neck top doesn't have as much of a problem because it has much more ease.

FO: Fingerless gloves

The lovely Claudia and her lovely knitted gloves has inspired me to try knitting some fingerless mittens. I had lots of really nice Silk Maiden yarn left over from this sweater, which remains one of my favorite basic pullovers. I found this free Ostrich Plume Mitts pattern
on ravelry, so I was all set. I wanted to see if these fingerless style mitts would really keep my fingers warm even though the fingers are not covered, and they really do work! They are also very quick to knit, even though I still dislike knitting small things in the round because it's just too fussy. Its also easy to adjust the sizing and fit as you go, and I can see knitting different pairs just by changing the stitch pattern on the back. I made mine a few rows longer on the wrist and a tiny bit wider on the hand section.