Back to Knitting

Most of December I tatted more than I knitted.  Not much knitting got done at all.

So, I have finally finished the body of the Tina's Sweater (designed by Anna Zilboorg, sold through Blue Moon Fiber Arts, knit in BMFA BFL sport).  I think I am going to love this sweater when it is done.  Now I'm going to knit the sleeves but I'm deviating from the pattern because I hate sewing up knit things.  I'm going to pick up stitches around the armholes and knit the sleeves from the top down.

There has been progress on the Marilyn blanket - I have four and a half squares done and Girl Far From Home has one and a half done.  She only remembered to bring the one, so the other half isn't in the picture.

 Girl Far From Home has always wanted knit slippers with leather soles so this is part of her Christmas/Birthday haul.  It won't take me long to knit these up for her.

And because I needed an excuse to use my new and most beautiful knitting needles, I've cast on the Sothia shawl in Madeline Tosh Merino Light.  It is a lovely color yarn but  I will never buy another Madeline Tosh yarn.  I bought five hanks of this yarn so both Dena and I could knit this shawl.  It took me over 7 hours to wind the first hank into a ball because it was so tangled.  The others took less time but two or three of them took over three hours each.  I mentioned that on Ravelry and the folks at Madeline Tosh did offer to replace the yarn but by then it had been wound into balls, mailed to Dena and they wanted the old stuff back.  In looking into the comments on all their yarns, the tangled hanks issue is pretty much universal throughout their yarns.  Frankly, the yarn isn't so great that I would ever try it again - I'd go for more Blue Moon Fiber Arts first cuz that's Lovely yarn.