The winners of last week’s pattern giveaway are, by Ravelry name:

• hummandknit
• sparky136
• fancydear
• geegaw

Each of these four lovely knitters has (or will shortly) receive a copy of Sandra C.’s lovely Mountain Peak Cowl pattern, 2 gifted from me, and 2 gifted from the designer herself. Thank you, Sandra C., for your generosity!

Didn’t win a pattern? You have another chance this week. This time, for Sandra C.’s matching Mountain Peak Mitts!

These are the perfect mitts to go with your  Mountain Peak Cowl and Mountain Peak Hat, am I right? The ones pictured here were knit by me, last Saturday. In fact, I knit the pair in one evening. They are truly a fast and fun knit!

Would you like to win a copy of the pattern?

Sandra C and I are each offering 2 free copies of the Mountain Peak Mitts pattern to my readers for a total of 4 pattern in this giveaway. To enter, leave a comment on this post by noon eastern time next Sunday, April 1, 2018 (no fooling), and please remember to include your Ravelry username in your comment. We’ll select 4 commenters at random to receive a free copy of the pattern. Thank you again, Sandra C for offering up more copies of your lovely pattern!

It’s been Hat Week

This week I knit two hats. First, Lineate:

I used Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Onyx and Green Dragon Yarns Sock in the Bermuda Bay colorway. I’ve had that skein of Green Dragon in my stash for a while — not exactly sure where I picked it up, but it comes from deep stash!

The second hat I knit was Luminosity:

The background color is once again Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Onyx — the same skein as I used for Lineate (and I have only used about half that skein) and a bunch of mini skeins.

Both of these hats were a lot of fun!

And now I’ve started on something bigger . . .

Loki would say hello, but he is just worn out from the excitement!

Look!

I finished Strathendrick Thursday evening. Here is a less artistically lit photo:

The Strathendrick pattern is part of Kate Davies West Highland Way club and is worked in her own Milarrochy Tweed yarn. It is a very oversized sweater worked on 3.25mm needles, so this was a whole heckuva lot of knitting!

After completing Strathendrick, I finished up what I had been using as my commuter project. Remember my Mountain Peak Hat I knit earlier this year? I made the matching cowl!

This is the Mountain Peak Cowl from designer Sandra C. I worked mine using one skein of Dream in Color Classy in the Grey Tabby colorway. The pattern calls for 250 yards of worsted wight yarn, and I used all but approximately 18 yards of the 250-yard skein.

Now for the Giveaway . . . 

Who’d like a free pattern for this lovely cowl? Sandra C and I are each offering 2 free copies of the Mountain Peak Cowl pattern to my readers . . . so that’s a total of 4 pattern we’ll bestow in this giveaway. To enter, leave a comment on this post by noon eastern time next Sunday, March 25, 2018, and include your Ravelry username in your comment. We’ll select 4 commenters at random to receive a free copy of the pattern. Thank you, Sandra C for offering up copies of your lovely pattern!

Meanwhile, here is Loki’s “I’m in Mommy’s lap and I am happy” face.

The winner of a copy of Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book is Laritza, who has been emailed. Thank you to everyone who left a comment!

Meanwhile, I am coming down the homestretch on my Strathendrick.

It is done apart from the bottom ribbing.

Here’s a closer view of the neckband:

And of the shoulder seam:

I did a three-needle bind-off on the shoulders, and worked it so the front and back were worked to the halfway point of the pattern repeat, so it flows nicely with no interruption in the pattern.

The bottom ribbing is going to take a while. You work the front and back separately to make a split ribbing. One thing I think should have been done in the pattern is to direct you to work one round of one color after doing the provisional cast-on at the bottom of the body, rather than jump right in and start the colorwork. Undoing a provisional cast-on on stranded colorwork is not fun.

Other than that, no problems. I’m looking forward to miles of twisted rib this week. At least I will be when Loki is not sitting in my lap!

I recently received a review copy of this:

This is Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book by the Editors of Vogue Knitting Magazine, which came out last month. It was first published in the late 1980s, and a second edition came out in 2002. This is the latest update.

The 2002 edition was pretty great, and this new edition is even better. It has a huge library of techniques: cast-ons, bind-offs, increases, decreases, different stitches, etc. Also has sections on different types of knitting — colorwork, entrelac, brioche, etc. There is lots of information on design and construction, and info on knitting tools, correcting errors, finishing, etc. There’s even a section on crochet.

According to the press release, there are more than 70 additional pages over the previous edition, and the book has more than 1600 illustrations.

I’m keeping my review copy, but I want to send a copy to one of you as a gift. Who’d like a copy?

To be entered n the drawing for a copy of Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book, leave a copy on this post be noon on Sunday, March 11, 2018 at noon Eastern time. I’ll draw a winner at random at that time.

Almost there . . .

I am a few rounds from completing the body of Strathendrick.

I am making it a bit longer than the pattern directs, with the armholes a bit deeper as I don’t want the sleeves as tight as shown. Once the body is done, there is still a lot of knitting to be done, but finishing the body will definitely be a milestone!

Loki is surprisingly chill abut the whole thing.