Spring Flings

I’ve been busy lately . . . busy knitting, of course. It began in February, when I started to think about what classes I’d like to teach at the shop this spring. Bundled as I was at the time in lots of layers of wool, the idea of lace—light, airy—was particularly appealing, so I put together several classes based on lace. Of course, I had to knit the items first!

There was the lace shrug in Manos Cotton Stria from Cotton Collection 3:

And lacey socks from the Spring 2006 Interweave Knits. I liked these so much I did a pair in Rowan Wool Cotton and another in Rowan Cashsoft DK:

And a lace washcloth for first-time lace knitters in Saucy Sport:

Then my family decided to spend the kids’ April vacation in Florida—vacation knitting! And because I do not get along with airplanes, I decided to take the train (30 hours!) and meet them there, so that meant train knitting. And of course I wanted to spike my vacation wardrobe with a nice, colorful cotton sweater—pre-vacation knitting! Here’s what I chose:

A striped pullover in Saucy (though to be perfectly honest, I did not finish this in time to take to Florida. It would have been too warm, anyway, but is just perfect for our chilly spring here in Vermont).

For the train, I chose 7 colors of Koigu to make a simple rectangular garter stitch stole. It was very portable and required no pattern to read or remember while bouncing down the tracks.

I also took along several pairs of socks to work on in case I needed a break from the stole. I chose Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Steelhead, Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Lakeview, and Lang Jawoll Cotton in a nice tweedy teal.

For beach and pool knitting I wanted something that would be easy and cool to work with in the heat. A lacey shrug in Plymouth Royal Bamboo was just the ticket, and will make a great present for my sister’s birthday next week.

Next in the queue: two-color slipstitch mosaic socks in a Koigu handpaint and a Jawoll solid!