9 months and some change

In the time it takes most people to make a baby, I finished a sweater!

The pattern is the infamous Aidez by Cirilia Rose. It's not for the faint of heart, especially when you choose it as your first sweater pattern, but I have to say that it was a pretty fun make, and I'm fairly pleased with the results.

I knit the size M and didn't make any pattern adjustments (mostly because I don't know how, oops). I tried to block it out so that you could get more of the detail on the front sides, but the yarn is synthetic and has already made up its mind about how to behave.

I decided on the medium because I was going through a fitted sweater phase, but now that it's done, I think I'd like it a teeny bit more if it were a teeny bit bigger. The next sweater's already on the needles, though, this time in a size L. I'm using some more synthetic yarn, but this one is much softer (and maybe a little too fuzzy? We'll see, I hardly paid anything for the yarn - beggars can't be choosers). 

I wore it during our recent cold snap, and it is WARM, let me tell you. If we do end up having the polar vortex they're forecasting, I think I'll be all set in this sweater.

I'm also considering this a stash-busting win! Even though my blog title has changed, that will always be a bit of a goal in the back of my mind. I used about 2 skeins of the yarn I swapped with Emma Jayne for this make. Now to figure out what to do with the other 3 skeins!

Have you got any winter knitting queued? I'd love to hear about it!

Well this is embarrassing

I finished this months ago (probably at least 4 or 5), but was seriously struggling to figure out how to display it. Embroidery hoop? Nope, didn't give myself enough extra room. Square frame? Same problem. Finally I just took the dang thing with me to JoAnn and realized that it would fit perfectly into a standard 8x10 frame.

Duh. Cross stitch 1, Alicia 0. 

This is based on Satsuma Street's Pretty Little Disney pattern, with color changes based on what I had on hand. When I started it, we were preparing for a trip to Disney and I was feeling simultaneously nostalgic and excited. However, once I finished it, I realized I would probably never hang it.

Luckily, once I finally showed my mom (who had better not be reading!) the finished (un-framed) project, she said that she'd like to have it. Woohoo, that makes for 2 Christmas presents down in one week! 

I'll admit that I got really tired of working on this about halfway through, but I powered through it so I could justify moving on to something else. I haven't ruled out cross stitch, but it might need to be a once-a-year type of thing...

...although I just realized that Satsuma Street has a new Barcelona pattern! (I spent 5 months there when I was 19, which sparked my wanderlust and will always hold a special place in my heart.) That might have to go on the queue ASAP. Now, if we could just get her to make a Chicago one...

Rainbow stash-busting

Well, after almost 9 months, it's finally done!

As usual, it's far from perfect, but I don't care, I love it!

I've talked about this a couple of times in the past, but it was inspired by this beauty:

[Hope Valley quilt by Jolene Klassen]

For once, almost all of the fabrics I used were from the stash, woohoo! I only bought 1/4 yard for this project specifically. All of the colored fabric was stuff that's been sitting around for quite a while, and the white on the front and the blue binding were recent stash acquisitions as part of a HUGE quilter's auction. 

I think Will (my new kitten, yay!) approves, don't you? 

This was definitely a labor of love, and impatience. While I certainly see a lot of flaws with this quilt, no one else seems to, and I did learn quite a bit. I'm already eagerly looking forward to making another...my Pinterest board is overflowing with ideas. I just can't decide where to start. What do you think?