Grace Handwarmers

I'm back at school and getting back into the thick of things, but I wanted to pop in and share something I made last week. I owed my friend Grace a birthday present. She lives in NYC and I wanted to get her something both useful and glam so, of course, my mind turned to handwarmers. I love handwarmers because they are versatile (you can get more seasonal wear out of them than gloves, especially if you live in a warmer climate) and stylish.

I shopped around for yarn and found a great pick-- Berocco's Lustra. It's wool and Tencel and feels gorgeous and extravagant when you work with it. It's actually not extravagant at all, at least price-wise, and you get a generous 197 yards per skein. I chose the wine color because I thought it would look great with Grace's complexion and because I thought it was classy but still a fun choice.

When planning the handwarmers I had trouble finding a pattern that was knit in the round instead of sewn, so I just wound up writing my own. I did 2x2 rib, moss stitch for the hands, and then ended with short few rows of rib and some eyelet lace.

This is a really terrible photo since my photographer boyfriend wasn't around to help me photograph, but rest assured-- in real life these fit much better than they appear to in the photo.

What's on my needles now?
SOCKS.
I will tell you all about that when I finish.

Slouchy Hats and Great Hair

Some days, my hair looks really awesome. For those other days, there's always slouchy hats.

It's a little bit cheating to put this up here since I actually finished it waaay back in 2010 (remember those days?) before the New Year, but I have been wearing it a lot and wanted to show it off.

The pattern is Natalie Larson's Spring Beret and the wool is a Debbie Bliss DK. My awesome sister took these photos at a stop during our family road trip last week. She posed me and everything. I think she has a real flair for the artistic. She also may be the recipient of the next hat I make. She kept telling me she wouldn't wear one, but I noticed that she keeps 'borrowing' mine every chance she gets.

New Year Knitting

One of my favorite parts of starting a new year is the resolutions. I'm not going to lie— I am a list maker. I take great pleasure in making lists of things to accomplish in the coming year. I don't look at it as pressure, but rather as motivation and a way to plan all the excitement. After looking back at the past year of knitting and at all the projects in my Ravelry queue (and the yarn on my floor), I came up with a list of things I want to work towards in the next twelve months.

1. Knitting resolution number one: Learn Continental knitting. I have wanted to do this for a while, and have made some headway. I'm still at the stage where I'm so much slower knitting this way that it's really frustrating, but I'm confident it will be worth it if I persevere.

2. Learn how to cable. I own three cable needles, but they might as well be hatpins for all the use they're getting now. It's time to bust those babies out and get to cabling! I'm especially in love with all these owls I keep seeing, so I am going to try some of those first.

3. Make some socks. It's time to bite the sock bullet and put my tiny DPNs to good use. I own some gorgeous sock yarn, and I need to use it!

4. Make some headway in my mile-long Ravelry queue of projects I want to try.
Ribbed handwarmers? Veyla gloves? A star-crossed and cabled beret? A very Pretty Thing? A slice of Citron? Yes to all of the above. I am going to try to start knitting adventurously and cross a few of these off of my list.

And, finally, my crazy, reach for the stars idea:
5. 2011-- Year of the Sweater
Can I do it? Maybe not. But maybe. And it at least gives me something to aim at!

Anyone else have any New Year's Knitting resolutions?