An Apparent Obsession with Brown Cables

January is prime knitting time.  Cold weather.  Long nights.  A great time to polish off some old projects and start a few new ones.

Late in the summer I had cast on a second sweater from A Fine Fleece by Lisa Lloyd.  This time I chose the cabled pullover Two Hearts.   The pattern has a beautiful intertwined cable that adorns both the front and back of the sweater that--like most cable patterns--looks more complicated than it really is.  One of those things that makes a knitter look good.  I love cables.  I love wool.  I love brown wool.  So yes, I loved making this sweater.  The fit is great, and I finished just in time for the first real cold snap of the winter.

I'll admit; this isn't the best picture.  I guess wasn't much in the mood for messing around with a camera on the day I finished blocking the sweater.  You get the idea.  Lamb's Pride Worsted is such a work horse yarn.  I like that you can splice the ends together as you knit to avoid all the sewing in at the end, and it blocks so easily.

Sticking with the brown cables theme...I've also been working on a brown tweed Cabled Baby Blanket with some yarn that I picked up when we visited Duluth in the fall.  I tend to over-buy with yarn and had purchased six skeins for this project.  It wasn't long before I realized that this would need to be one tall baby if I kept going on the blanket, so I stopped progress and grabbed a fresh skein to make a matching sweater, hat, and mittens set before I finished up with the rest of the yarn.  I had never used Encore's Worsted Tweed before and like it very much.  I wasn't (and am still not) sure what I'm going to do with this set.  I'm such a sucker for baby knitting.  And earflap caps.

So, if you finish something, there has to be something to take its place, right?  I like to keep three projects on hand: one to keep by my chair in the living room, one to keep by my chair where we watch sports and movies, and one to keep in a bag on the go.

My new living room project is an afghan that--surprise, surprise--is a cabled pattern made out of brown wool.  Demerits for originality, I know, although technically, it is tan.  The pattern is meant to be knit in strips and pieced together at the end, but I'm opting to knit the whole thing at once.  A single row takes a while, but just think, the faster I knit, the warmer I'll be.

I'm still working on my second Knitted Quilt.  That's a good project for TV watching.  And my new to-go project is a pattern I purchased online called Waffles with Syrup by Carol Sunday.  I'm knitting it in the softest pink blend of merino, cashmere, and angora.  See, I can use color.

As you can tell, I've had lots of time for knitting.  Reading, too. I've already finished two rounds of treatment and while it appears to be working, it doesn't leave me with much energy.  I'm so glad I have hobbies and interests that allow me to feel somewhat productive when not much else seems to get done.  I'm learning to measure progress with adjusted standards.