TWO Finishes on this Friday!

Happy Friday, friends. A stormy day is in the forecast and I am delighted. You know by now how much I love a good thunderstorm, so I won’t go into that. But I’m also planning to spend an hour or so with a friend to discuss our progress on Taking the Leap, so there’s a lot to look forward to today!

But first: Fridays are for joy here at The Cozy Burrow and what could be more joyful than two finished projects??!

My Junction Journey:

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My second Junction is finished! Here’s my Ravelry link.

I bought the yarn at the 2022 NH Sheep and Wool Festival. My first challenge was when I got home and realized that I’d picked up a hank from a different dye lot. I blame the bad barn lighting and the lack of tags! Nevertheless, I was determined to make it work and tried alternating skeins every row. It was fussy, but I think it hid the color difference really well. In the second finished garment, you can just barely see the difference at the bottom of the body — the last handful of rows before the ribbing are slightly darker than the rest. Only slightly!

Looking back, I can pinpoint that my second challenge came while swatching. Long story, but I swatched with one needle size but knit the body of the sweater with another. That’s just something that happens in my life! Distractions aren’t my friend when I’m starting a new project. Anyway, the whole time I was knitting this sweater, I was trying it on and saying this is too big. But I kept going. Because how bad could it be? Well, it could be pretty bad.

After finishing my first version, I spent a few weeks trying to decide what to do. Finally, I just unraveled the whole dang thing. It was never going to get worn in its current form and I loved the pattern and the yarn too much to just hang it in my closet and forget about it.

Thank you to all of you who encouraged me to play with the gauge and needles — I was able to use pick a slightly smaller size sweater and knit it up in the gauge I liked. I’m fairly happy with the outcome!

(We took a bajillion pictures and I swear my eyes were closed in all of them. This was the cream of the crop, believe it or not!)

I loved the fit of this sweater before blocking, but it definitely grew afterwards. Now it’s a little longer than I anticipated and the neckline is still too large. I’m definitely learning that I like less positive ease in my garments. You’d think that’s something I’d already know about myself, but alas. I have a lot to learn in life! And this knowledge is going to help me with the fit of my next sweater. And the experience of knitting and reknitting this project will give me the courage to start completely over when necessary. (I’m looking at you, Birkin.)

But overall? I will definitely be wearing this sweater to the apple orchard this fall! And I think it’s something to be proud of.

Runaway Shorties:

And yes, I also finished the Runaway Shortie socks this week (my Ravelry link)! Friends, Sarah did amazing things with this pattern. They are delightful to knit – almost like knitting origami. They’re like a puzzle that folds up to create such a sweet little cuff! I’ve been wearing them around the house this week and love how they fit and feel.

My first sock of the two came out a bit wonky because I struggled with identifying which stitches were for the instep and which were for the soles when decreasing for the toe (I know; this is something that should be obvious to me by now!). But I started the second sock with a plan and think I nailed it. And I’m okay with the wonky one because they will almost always be covered up by my shoes when in public and no one is going to see it.

AND – these socks are super quick to knit up. I cast on the second sock on Friday the 11th, knit a bit on the weekend (I don’t get a lot of knitting done over the weekends, unlike many), and finished on Tuesday the 15th. I’ll take it!

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Whew! This has been another difficult week to add to the already difficult summer but fall is in sight. Dunkin started serving Pumpkin flavored everything this week and we have already been twice. Don’t worry, we’ll control ourselves as the season progresses but it’s fun to indulge right now! This weekend is up in the air. I know I will spend a few hours at the library tomorrow and I hope to have time to wind the yarn for my Tessellated Vest in order to start swatching next week.

I hope your weekend is full of exactly what you need. Take good care!

PS – this is random, but I’d like to sincerely thank all of you who use my Amazon affiliate links when buying books or random other things I share here. I just received a gift card with my earnings and it’s enough to buy our next two readalouds for our homeschool. Thank you, thank you, thank you!