First finished knitted thing of the year

One of the things I wanted to do whilst I have a bit more time on my hands between jobs was knit more. It hasn’t really worked out so far - there seems like a lot to do regardless of work and I have nothing like the empty time I imagined. Still, I finally finished a largish hap that I started back in December.

I haven’t made any New Years resolutions as such, but I am determined to get through some of my yarn stash (it’s overflowed from most of a chest of draws into several large bags in odd corners) and read more books (totally out of control). This hap was a reasonable start. Knitted in Jamieson’s DK it took 12 25g balls. Typically I had 11 of the main colour, a moorit/shaela mix (moorit is a natural brown, shaela a grey - I love the dialect names for the colours of Shetland sheep) so ended up using a couple of balls of ‘Pine’ for the edge.

It isn’t a combination I would have chosen, but it’s what I had enough of and now it’s done I like it more than I thought I might. It’s putting me in mind of strips of pine forest against wintery Scottish hillsides. The moorit/shaela mix that looked lovely in the summer seemed muddy whilst I was was knitting against a winter landscape, but miraculously when washed and dressed has improved significantly again. The brown is soft and warm with the grey giving it an occasional silvery sheen (my own hair is actually much the same combination now I think about it).

The pattern is an adaptation of Donna Smith’s Brough shawl, just using the outer leaf motif. I’ve done this before with spindrift yarn, but using the DK made it effortlessly larger. It’s a lovely pattern to knit once you get into the rhythm of it (which doesn’t take long) and is pleasingly squishy and warm now it’s finished. The next thing I knit is going to be smaller and quicker, but I do love Donna’s designs and mean to knit more of them (one of the things I like about them is that pieces  like this are so easily adaptable, I like her gloves in the last Wool Week annual too, but am planning on making them fingerless mitts).