phila*craft

two weeks' worth of miscellaneous vacation knitting/finishing

The gusset of a plain sock made from Colinette's Jitterbug in the Slate colorway. My mom claimed the pair before the first one was off the needles (four and sometimes five dps). I got the yarn from the warm and welcoming Chix with Stix in Forest Park, IL who have a great sock yarn section and the best Malabrigo selection I've ever seen.

A scarf knit horizontal in garter stitch with plant-dyed nubby, boucle, mohair and wool yarns. I left this behind with my sister.


I finished the Deep V-Neck Sweater from Erica Knight's Classic Knits for my mom just in time to give it to her for Christmas. I used Jo Sharp DK Wool in the Monsoon colorway and modified the pattern only to shorten the sleeves by a few inches. A great basic sweater.

Finally desperate to have knitting to do on New Year's Day while Chix with Stix was closed, I grabbed Mission Falls 1824 wool from my sister's handwork basket and made four squares for the afghan she's making using patterns from Jan Eaton's 200 Squares book. I improvised on the bottom two, but the top squares are "Alternating Eyelets" and "Elsie's Rose Leaf."

I also spent happy vacation knit-time with Susan Strawn's Knitting America. Susan is my sister's colleague at Dominican University in River Forest, IL. The book is rich with expertly and tastefully chosen samples, patterns, photos and illustrations. There's a lot of inspiration as well as information between these covers. The "poetry" mittens!