New things, and old

Unlike the rest of knitdom, I've only recently become a fan of Ysolda Teague, the Scottish knit designer with the most popular pattern on Ravelry. I've known about her for a while and remember when she published her first pattern in Knitty in 2005, but I've never made anything of hers, even though I've liked some of her designs.

That's all about to change, because this past week I got her book Whimsical Knits 2, in book form, from a local knit shop. The book itself is really cute, as are the projects. The first thing I'm knitting from it is this:


Called Nathaniel, it's a squirrel pillow. I have some Galway Chunky, which was quite inexpensive, to make a white squirrel. I'm thinking about adding a strand of mohair to make more of a fuzzy squirrel. I know it's not everybody's thing, but I think he's so cute.


I also have in mind the Belle Beret shown at the top out of Louisa Harding Grace Silk & Wool in black. I decided on black because it's bound to be useful, don't you think? This is one of her free patterns. The ribbon is sewn to a piece of elastic and inserted into a casing to get a good fit around the head. I could jazz it up with a different colored ribbon, or just keep the whole thing black or gray.


I know I will be making more things out of the Whimsical Knits book, because I like everything in it. There are 12 designs, an almanac of sorts. And her instructions and pattern layouts are so clear I think it will be a good experience.

As for finishing my UFOs, I've hit a stumbling block in the Maddalena cardigan mentioned last time. It was flying along until I began to run really short of yarn. Hmm. I hunted around for an extra ball, but I could pretty much see from the ends in the finished pieces that I'd knit all there was.

I tried to make it work and kept going till this was all that was left.


And it was not enough! After weighing the yarn to figure out grams and possible grams per row, I decided I had just enough to do a one-row neckband and button bands (without buttons). I tried it but it didn't work as the bands wanted to flip over and under and generally looked bad, as you can see.


I've made this sweater before and didn't have this issue. In fact, I used just over six of the seven balls I had. And this time I made the sleeves two inches shorter! So either I bought eight balls last time and didn't realize it, or the seventh ball for this sweater is hiding around here somewhere. This is one problem with putting a project down for a long time. In any event, I was able to find another ball in my color on eBay (thanks, Lisette, for offering!) and will finish it off when that comes in.

In the meantime, should I cast on a Ysolda project, or slog along on another UFO? Decisions.