Wednesday, May 27, 2015

yarn along + ashton shawlette

yarn along with Ginny today, from my front porch:

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry and Granny's Favourite cardigan are underway, and both receive two thumbs up. As the NPR review mentions, A. J. Fikry is a love letter to reading and the power of books, and I'm enjoying it immensely. Tugs at your heartstrings. A widower runs a bookshop on a remote island, and he's struggling with the death of his wife and his own curmudgeonly ways. When something special is left in his store, his life changes completely. A little cliched, but I recommend it.

The little cardigan is fun to knit, and the pattern is written for a huge range of sizes, which is spectacular. I rummaged around in the yarn bins and found some deep stash to use -- Brooklyn Handspun Instant Gratification. Lovely stuff!
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A dreadful cold struck our household just in time for the long holiday weekend (ugh). While it wasn't the relaxing weekend I envisioned, we managed to do a lot despite feeling cruddy. We started Saturday off right with a trip to the Evanston farmers market (rhubarb! Bennison Bakery's rhubarb cream cheese danish!). I tried two new recipes, both from Smitten Kitchen: ramp pizza turned out awesome, and rhubarb snacking cake is delicious (snacking cake? how's that for a concept? I love it!).
I didn't sew any buttons onto the baby sweaters I'd already knit, but I did block a shawlette that had been languishing.


pattern: ashton shawlette, by dee o'keefe (free!)
yarn: orange flower twist | sock, santa fe, less than 1 (600-yd) skein
needles: u.s. 5 (3.75 mm) bamboo circs


notes:
I enjoyed knitting this, but I'm not sold on the tight twist of the yarn. It doesn't help that while the colors are beautiful, they're not very "me." It didn't use very much of this mega-skein of yarn (600 yds), which is a shame!

Nice free pattern. I'd recommend blocking the edging a little more severely than I did to get pretty points.


4 comments:

Caffeine Girl said...

The shawlette is quite pretty. I often end up gifting items that I knit in colors that aren't really me.
I love the Smitten Kitchen and use that cookbook quite a lot. I'll ahve to try those two recipes.

Alethea said...

What a beautiful shawl!

Here from the Yarn Along link-up.

Lucy Bowen said...

Beautiful shawl, I like it without the sharp points!! The sweater is a gorgeous colour.

Rachel said...

Beautiful shawl -- that is a gorgeous color...too bad it's not 'you'!

I had 'The Storied life...' on by TBR piled after hearing about it on Books on the Nightstand. I wasn't sure what I was going to pick up after finishing up my latest book but your post pushed this one to the top of my list. I've read about half right now and though it's not a 'great piece of literature' (whatever that really means), I'm enjoying it immensely! thanks for the rec.