Heart dress

I bought a pink skein of Cascade Sierra on clearance (a complete impulse purchase on a quick trip to buy needles – my guard was low, carrying a baby and corralling a three year old). I was thinking it would make a good tulip hat, but the gauge is obviously way too thick, and I think it’s actually not a great color next to her face. It’s been sitting near my desk, waiting for inspiration to hit. As I cast off the Downton Abbey knit along cloche, suddenly I found myself casting on a little dress. I’m using Topaz as a rough guide, although I changed the hem, am knitting in the round instead of seaming it, and had to adjust for gauge (4.5 st/in instead of 4). I also decided to write a little intarsia heart pattern instead of the southwest-inspired fairisle in the pattern.

It’s an addicting little knit. Somehow in spite of knitting for 24 years I’ve never tried intarsia before. There will have to be more of this in my future, it’s so satisfying. I experimented a lot with which way to wrap, so some edges are smoother than others and it needs a good block, but super fun. I meant to put it down and take a picture several rows ago – it looked for all the world like a jellyfish, with long, long white tendrils and shorter pink ones, but now that I’m further in, they’re less dramatic.

Such a sweet, pink, cheerful little knit. I even found a new-to-me pink knitting/house blog to enjoy while I work. What fun.

Pre-felting roundup

Some pictures of knitting projects ready to go be felted. I think I’m going to take them to a laundromat rather than attempting to use our HE frontloader? People have said that you can’t control the felting process as well in a front loader, that sometimes HE doesn’t produce enough hot water to felt well, and beside I don’t think I want to risk getting matted wool in our machine. I’m excited, though, I haven’t felted anything since we lived in our Kirkland apartment — it’s probably been about 7 years!

After these pictures, I put the knits in the front seat of my car with a roll of quarters, hopefully not doomed to be chauffeured around forever. Time is ticking if I want to get these felted before I go back to work.

Slippers for me, tops and bottoms:


Dryer balls – an experiment. They’re supposed to reduce drying time (saving electricity) and act as a fabric softener and wrinkle preventer. Fascinating and worth a shot.

Mini-cauldrons, for storing some TBD small items…:

I feel successful to finally be done with the knitting at least! 🙂