Mid-week hello

Hi friends, and happy Wednesday!

How’s your week going so far?

My new cardigan and I arrived back to my apartment this evening after a wonderful almost-week at my parents in Virginia:

My apartment always feels so quiet after I’ve been away.  But I can’t complain too much as I had a wonderful visit home, with lots of fun knitting with my mom (and even a bit with my sister)–along with yummy food, a little shopping, and just generally getting to spend some down time with my family.

Of course, I forgot to take many pictures.  But my mom and I cast on for Southwell Cardis together.  We’re both using the called for yarn, Sherwood Yarns BFL sock. It’s non-superwash BFL, and I’m really enjoying knitting with it so far.  It has a lovely sheen to it, which I wasn’t expecting, and a very soft hand.  I found that my knitting looked a little less even than usual in my swatch, but any kinks smoothed out nicely during blocking.

I did have to start the thing three times (all because of silly mistakes on my part!), so there’s not loads to see.  You can just spot the start of the cable detail down the front (which I’m hoping will look a bit neater as I go!) and the Hiya Hiya Sharps I’m trying out on this project … I wanted some sharp tips for all the lifted increases this sweater calls for:

I’m trying to balance working on this with finishing up the projects I talked about last week — luckily, the Stash Down KAL was extended until April 15, so I still have time to get those stash projects finished!  I need to get to it, as the next Year of Techniques project — the Brambling Shawl — has been released, and I’m keen to get going on it!  I’ve never knit intarsia, so it will be a real adventure!

I’ve also been enjoying the return of the daily #yarnlovechallenge over on Instagram.  Today’s prompt was hands, so I snapped this picture of me, my mom, and our cardis before I left this morning:

If you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend browsing through #yarnlovechallengeapril over on Instagram!

So that’s what’s happening in my corner of the kitting world. Hope your week is going well — what are you working on? Linking up with Craft On again this week — you can see what others are knitting over at Frontier Dreams!