Knitted things

So I have been knitting.

About a month or so ago, after I finished the stripey cardi for N, I became completely obsessed with knitting up a dinosaur sweater for her after I saw the pattern on Ravelry. She's been going through a bit of a dinosaur phase and for about a week or so, wanted to be one for Halloween. That has since changed. However, I showed her a photo of the sweater when I began working on it and she would ask me everyday if I was knitting on her sweater. A couple of mornings in a row she woke up, saw me sleeping on the air mattress next to her bed, and immediately started crying about how I wasn't knitting her sweater.

The knitting went quickly....I don't seem to knit a lot with worsted weight anymore and I forget how fast it can be to whip up a little sweater at 4-5 stitches per inch.

It's been done for a while and I still need to weave in a few ends and wet block it to even out the stitches, but I am very pleased with how it turned out. Fits her perfectly, which feels like quite an accomplishment. And I knit it entirely from stash. Go me. Now it just needs to get cold here.

Back in August, I joined a mystery knitalong for a Stephen West design. I'm not too big on mystery KAL's because often they are large shawls and I don't want to invest a lot of time and energy into something I may or may not really like.
This had an option to be short and sweet, though, and I like Westknits designs, and a lot of folks from one of my Ravelry groups were participating, so I cast on for it. I used stash yarn again. This is some fingering weight I bought off my friend Tasha. She had lots of leftovers from a shawl she knit that I loved, so I bought them off her and they were a good fit for this. This is the Earth and Sky shawl from Westknits


I also have finally finished my "stupid, simple shawl". That's what the Rockstars all call this pattern and most of us have done one now, it seems.. It's the Simple Yet Effective Shawl in fingering weight. There are a WHOLE LOT of stitches in this here shawl. But it was a great no-thought project for watching N at gymnastics or trips in the car. I used two skeins of Noro Kureyon Sock. One I have had in stash for quite a while and the other was one I bought for this shawl. The first skein was super bright, with oranges, pinks, and cobalt blue. So I picked up a contrasting skein that was mostly greens with a bit of red and yellow. It looks like a box of crayons melted all over it, but I like it.
It is bigger than I anticipated...not quite in the scarf category. I like to wear these triangular shawlettes with the point in front and the ends wrapped around my neck, and I can still kinda sorta do that with this, but it is a bit much fabric for wearing it to the grocery store like that. That's a queen size bed it is blocking on. Now that it is blocked out, I'll have to play with wearing it. This was on the needles for FOREVER and I am so glad it is finally done so I can wear it.