gift knitting, blah blah

It’s back to gift knitting this week. I have several projects in the works, but only 2 that I’ll discuss here and now.

First I’m working on a shawl for Cecelia. When I saw her last month, she talked to me about some hand-knit shawls she’s been seeing. She told me that they were very expensive and they were knit with very big needles because they had “big holes.” I interpreted this as the shawls were lacy because the needle size was quite large in comparison to the yarn weight.

I think she wants a hand knit shawl.

A few weeks ago I searched around for a shawl pattern- something she’d like that I’d also like to work on. I decided on a triangle shawl with large, knitted holes in it. It is knit with worsted weight yarn on “appropriately” sized needles, but the holes are knit into it by casting off and on throughout the pattern.
I want to keep a distinctive hand-knit look to this item, so I searched for a thick-thin yarn: soft, calm with a handspun quality. Etsy was definitely the place. I found a lovely batch of yarn from a woman in Missouri who owns and manages her own farm, Dream Catcher Sheep and Fiber Farm . She sheers the sheep, cleans the wool, and spins it. I bought about 300 grams of yarn, hand spun in a worsted-ish weight. One of the things I loved about this Etsy shop is that she will tell you from which of her lambs the wool was spun. My yarn came from Stormy Wether, a very handsome fellow with soft wool. The yarn isn’t dyed or bleached, nor chemically cleaned, and it is a lovely yarn to work with. I’ll definitely buy yarn from her again.

The other gift knitting project is a cardigan for my mom that I started knitting last winter, then put into hibernation over the summer. Technically it has not come out from hibernation yet, but I know it needs some attention since her birthday is in January. The pattern is from the first Debbie Bliss magazine, the Cable Vent Jacket. I’m using Jaeger Extra Fine Merino DK in cream. I got it last year on sale because it was the end of the lot or of the colorway. It’s a soft, consistent yarn to work with, but I hate that about 25% of the balls have knots.

I’m going to keep plugging away at all this gift knitting, even though I really want to knit my peplum seed-stitch cardigan.