I finished blocking Hanna, and it really made a difference.



The seed stitch now lays flat, and the fabric has a much nicer texture to it. It's still ridiculously large, but I'm thinking that just doubling it over into itself lengthwise when I wear it will take care of that. Unfortunately, it's basically summer here in Georgia, so I won't be able to wear it again for a few months.

Up next, I'm thinking $5 in Paris, and also hopefully wrapping up the pattern for Cestino.

All done!

I finished blocking the mini-dress yesterday.



I'm really happy with how it turned out, so much so that I'm pretty sure I'll make another (probably in a solid color) in the future. I think the only adjustments I'd make is to make it a bit longer so that I could wear it as a dress.

Meanwhile, I just set my Hanna cowl to block. Hopefully that straightens out the issues with the edging. Woo, blocking!

Free time for more knitting

I've recently found myself among the ranks of the unemployed. While that has so far found me spending A LOT of time cleaning the house like mad, I'm slowly getting around to spending more time knitting.

As such, I finally finished the Hanna Cowl.



Just like I thought, it's HUGE. I also realized just before I finished the bind off that I'd missed three rows out of each of the last two pattern repeats, so it should be even larger. It also doesn't seem to have the same soft hand as the cowl in the pattern picture, which was part of what drew me to the pattern in the first place. I do still need to block it, but, obviously, there's only so much that will do to help.

My feelings may change once I've blocked it and worn it a time or two (although now that it's March, that may have to wait until next winter), but if I were to redo it, I'm pretty sure I'd make it two-thirds to half the width it calls for, and probably substitute ribbing for the seed stitch.

Now, onto the next thing: Caddy Melville Ledbetter's Mini Dress from Knits That Fit (a.k.a. the entire reason I wanted the book in the first place). I'm making it out of Cascade Ecological Wool and Eco+, in mustard yellow, delft blue, and cream.

So far the only changes I've made are to change the first three rows to 1x1 ribbing rather than garter stitch, but I'm toying with the idea of leaving the white band at the stomach out as well. We'll see how I feel when I get a little closer to it.

I'm only a few rows in, so no pictures yet, but hopefully soon!

Halfway through Hanna

I got through one and a half pattern repeats on Hanna, decided four repeats would probably come closer to the results I wanted than three, and went from there. I finished the second repeat last night. Lets take a look, shall we?



Yeah, that's pretty huge. If it wasn't knitting up so fast I'd probably go ahead, rip it out, and restart it at about half the size, but I'm curious how the finished product will turn out, and I have a rather long movie waiting for me from Netflix, so I guess I'll take my chances.

Wrapping up those last UFOs...

I'd started the Hanna Cowl earlier last year, but miscounted the number of stitches and had to frog and start over. I'm giving it another go now.



I'm using Patons Classic Wool in Aran, Currant, New Denim, and Royal Purple, and cast on 240 stitches rather than 268 - I may regret this, I didn't want it to be quite as huge as it looked like it was going to be when I was frogging, but this still may be a lot bigger than I want. I'm debating if I want to do the full 4 chart repeats, but I'll definitely be doing at least 3. A lot of people who knit this on Ravelry have commented on the seed stitch curling up, and I'm seeing some of that already, but I'm hoping that blocking will help straighten it out in the end.