Catching up

It seems I never posted my last four knitting projects here.

Here they are, all at once.  First is a cotton lace sweater by Bonne Marie Burns, finished in January - I wore it a couple of times this spring.  I like it though the closure is not really practical and could have been skipped entirely.

The next one was this vest called "Pommier" by Hilary Smith Callis.  I loved the Malabrigo yarn in the store, and it's appropriately squishy, but it's a superwash and doesn't hold its shape as well as a normal wool would.  I finished it in March and wore it once before the winter was over - two photos to show the contrasting reversible collar.

 That collar is my first project with two-color brioche stitch, which makes a very thick, cozy fabric.

Then I finally finished my Hitofude, by Japanese designer Hiroku Fukatsu. The unusual construction gives it the name, which translates to "single brush stroke." I chose it to show off two skeins of a hand-dyed gradient I bought last fall at SAFF. 

 If you are wondering about my pose, we were letting the wind blow giant bubbles off the deck at Judy's house.

All the color work is done by the yarn which was dyed Olive, purple and teal.  I used the two skeins starting at opposite ends of the gradient - so the sweater started with the olive at the top, then was knit through the teal at the halfway point. I started the next skein with the teal so the sweater shades back to the olive at the lower edge. I started working on it January and didn't finish it till last month. I made it longer than the pattern required and it just seemed to take forever.  The yarn was thin and hard and made my fingers sore, so I always had the vest or this next project to spell me when I felt the irritation.

Last, I made the Ombre Cowl.  Mine is a little floppier than the designer intended because of the silk-wool blend yarn I used, but it's a workable cowl.

I should have styled myself better for the photo than to put it on over my teal sweatshirt.  It's made with two strands of three colors of yarn held together, which makes for a 5 step gradient. One of the colors was a slightly purplish pink - I overdyed it with some silk dyes which turned it peach colored.  The design then grades between the rust and the pink colors.

I have a couple of quilt photos to post too - saved for another day.