Back to normal knitting!

I finished up the fair isle cardigan early this month, and I am ever so happy to have it out of my hair! I feel like I can relax a bit now with my knitting, towards the end things were getting somewhat tense with it. There are a few areas I am not completely happy with: the button bands, despite close checking of gauge to know how many stitches to pick up, droop a bit. As does the ribbing at the top of the pockets (note to self: find black elastic thread and take care of this). Also, the neck is shaped something along the lines of a boat neck. I know I picked up stitches in the range recommended, so I don't know what the heck happened with it. But let's just call it a design element. Unfortunately, my office at work hovers around the 80 degree mark, so I've only had the chance to wear it once since I finished it. This weekend I'll be going with a friend to a knit-in at the local Barnes & Noble, so that might be a good time to feature it. Here's a picture of it when it was being blocked.

Those of us who joined the skein of the month club from Webs got our first shipment toward the end of January--lovely yarn from Sheep Shop, and a very pretty pattern, too (see Jan. 27 post). Well, it turned out my skein was the skein from hell. Terrifically tangled and matted to boot. After approximately 5 hours spent trying to untangle it (my husband even volunteered to help, when he saw me in deep frustration mode, and a friend did the last part for me, in trade for my doing tassles for a hat for her), it was done, but the yarn was a bit the worse for wear in parts. Still, I am enjoying knitting it--it is very soft. Said friend suggested contacting the yarn company, which I did. They say they've never heard of this happening before, but kindly offered to send me a replacement skein--WOUND! (I don't think they trust me to do it myself, but that's ok.) The end of February is creeping up on us, I guess we'll be getting our next skein and pattern soon.

Other recent projects include a version of the Robin's Egg Blue hat, which was a lovely, soothing knit and a pretty shrug, Cherish, from Kim Hargreave's book Heartfelt worked in Rowan Big Wool.