If Spring is here, Why am I still wearing Wool?

So today is the first day of spring and I can't wait to leave this winter behind, but instead of daffodils blooming in my yard and my primroses blooming happily in my gardens, the yard is much as it has been all winter.

So I continue with the Winter Knitting. I've been working through some projects and UFOs per my desire to get some things off the needles this month. And first up is my Harmonia's Rings, a cowl/shoulder wrap Cat Bordhi and the designer, Sivia Harding were wearing at Madrona--not at the same time, they each had their own--which was tempting to just corner one of them, rip it off their shoulders and run. But then again, I can knit my own. And I did.

I used two skeins of See Jayne Knit's hand dyed merino in the colorway Chocolate Truffle Berry. Okay, she had me at "chocolate." The yarn is wonderfully soft and cozy and I've been wearing this constantly.

Sivia's pattern for Harmonia's Cowl gave me two challenges, knitting a moebius for the first time and doing a moebius cast on. Thank goodness for Cat Bordhi's excellent youTube video, I was up and running in no time and it is really addictive knitting.

The pattern repeat is easy, but lately I've found that I can't follow a chart or even simple row repeats to save my life--just way too much life filling up the bandwidth and remembering what row I am on seems impossible--so I've come up with a solution. My own sort of cheat sheet that I make for each project using Excel, and making a small chart with the rows and repeats and just check it off at the end of each row. Then when I come back to it, or forget halfway through the round where I am, I can just glance over figure it out without doing a bunch of frogging back. This is the chart I used for my Veste Everest.

I hadn't planned on doing the beaded picot bind off around the neck, but then as I was looking for something else, I found a tube of beads I'd bought years ago for something else and never used, so the beaded edge it was.

I loved knitting this so much I plan on making two more for Christmas presents, I have the yarn for one, and am keeping my eyes peeled for the perfect yarn for a second one, though I may just use some stash yarn.

The other project that found its way onto my needles after Madrona was a pair of Toast. Again at the Cat Bordhi class (that was just a day of inspiration in so many ways) I was sitting next to Kari, who also spins for her Etsy shop, Mud.Creek, and she had knit a pair on the plane up from Arizona. I was immediately enamored and when I got home, cast on. I know some people don't "get" fingerless gloves, but I adore them. My hands get too hot in gloves or mittens but fingerless? Oh, they are perfectly toasty without getting too hot.

These are modeled by one of the boys, so they are a little large on him. Again I used a skein from See Jayne Knit, a handspun silk and merino blend in Watermelon. I have another skein in another colorway, which will probably get used for yet another Christmas present.

I also finished up a small shawl on the plane to Chicago this week, which I'll get blocked this weekend. Then it might be a bit before I finish anything more because I had to sign books for two days straight, now it is my wrists who are toast and I have to take a few days off of knitting to rehab them. Stinks, but I knew that would happen. Instead I'll keep enjoying my new FOs, and dreaming of Spring.

And Spring knitting . . .