Off the needles

 My brother had been wanting a new Aran sweater for quite some time - we started talking about it around this time last year. Come his birthday I offered to buy the wool for his birthday present and knit it for his Christmas present. My options were somewhat limited because he specifically wanted both pure wool and for it to be machine-washable. Early last year I had saved something  from an Irish yarn store in my basket, but by August it was no longer available so I had to go back to plan B, which was an English company (Yarn Undyed) which sells an amazing variety of undyed wool - suitable for you to dye yourself. We were both tempted by the merino/linen mix, which is now on my own personal shopping list,  but he stuck with his original wish for pure wool, and I got this finished just in time to send down for Christmas.

As a bonus, my sister-in-law has been doing a textile course in the Crawford College of Art & Design, and has been doing a lot of dying, so I sent her two spare balls of wool to experiment with.

I've been focussing on finishing off old projects, so I finally finished a lace throw that has been on the needles for (gulp) over twenty years. I went off the colour somewhere along the way, but kept going back and plugging away at it whenever I had nothing better to do, and the colour has grown on me again. It was originally a pattern for a baby blanket, but this is more the size of a full length wrap for a woman.

And one last finally-finished project, also on the needles for a LONG time. This was a rainbow cake of wool, and I originally started the shawl pattern that came free with it. However, there was what I considered a very muddy colour transition from purple to green, and I had never liked it. I was at the point of planning to rip it and just give the wool away, but I came across a colour-block infinity scarf on Ravelry and thought it would be a good use for it. I discarded the parts of the yarn with the muddy colour transition, so I had to add in a yellow from my stash which was the closest match in terms of weight in order to get the required length, but I am very happy to have finally got this made up into something. Since it was just a tube knit until the required length was reached, when the ends were grafted together to make a seamless loop, it was the ideal project for this Christmas holiday, requiring no thought or concentration whatsoever. 

Currently working on socks and a scarf design which uses up leftover sock yarn.