Two-For-Eight and Other Works in Progress and Complete

I fell in love with the December Lights Tam on the cover of Inerweave Knits‘ holiday issue, but I know my limits—both knitterly and economic. I wasn’t going to buy eight skeins of yarn to knit up one tam. Instead, I decided to try knitting it up in just two yarns from my stash, one solid and one variegated.

Here’s how my version is coming along. I suppose it’s immodest of me, but I absolutely adore this piece and the mix of dark and light it offers—like looking into the the windows of a lighted cathedral on a chilly winter night. I’m working all the red/pink stitches on the original pattern in black and all the green stitches in the variegated. The handful of blue stitches on the original pattern I’m working in either black or variegated, depending on which seems best in each spot.

Here’s my latest piece of “meeting knitting”: Miss Crazy from Knitting Delight in silk Habu.

Really the scarf was just an excuse to buy the yarn, which I couldn’t pass by. (In fact, I also got a second cone in a wonderful charcoal grey/pine green colorway.) I am planning on keeping this piece simple, leaving the eyelets as eyelets, rather than running ribbons through them as the pattern suggests. My only complaint—but I knew this would be the case—is that the silk is a bit stiff to work with. The next time I find myself succombing to the siren-call of Habu, I’m going to try to steer myself in the direction of some wool.

Finally, here’s a picture of my completed Rosebud.

This took just one skein of Cherry Tree Hill‘s Ariel and came out nice and big.

P.S. Here’s a question for discussion—

How many of you knit things you know you’re not going to wear?

I find myself doing this all the time. I’m not a hat-wearer, yet I had to make December Lights. I also design hats, though I don’t really wear them. (In fact, I’m at that peri-menopausal place where almost any knit garment is much too warm to even think about wearing.) Sometimes I just see a pattern and I have to know how it’s going to look as I work it up, regardless of whether I’ll wear it or not. I figure that by time I’m done with the piece it will have told me who it’s for.