Holiday Knitting Finishes and a Winner!

Hey y'all! Hmmm, seems like I'm only just now getting around to posting some the things I made for the holidays! Today I've got a couple of knitting finishes and I'll share the sewing finishes later - how does that sound?

I made this hat for Alex for Christmas using the Regular Guy Beanie pattern by Chuck Wright, which is a free download on Ravelry. I decided that Alex needed just a plain, neutral-coloured toque that he could throw on and wear with whatever, whenever. I changed the pattern slightly to make it larger and you can see my pattern notes here on my Ravelry.

This is what happens when you're a librarian who is also a knitter and has to work on the weekend! Alex picked out the yarn himself a few months ago - it's Alpaca Love in Cobblestone from Debbie Stoller's Stitch Nation collection (80% wool, 20% alpaca). Since Alex picked out the yarn and I was scared he would recognize it, and since he always asks me what I'm working on, I couldn't knit the hat at home. It took two weeks of subway trips to and from work (when I could get a seat - I do not knitting while standing up on the TTC as that could lead to serious bodily injury) and some occasional lunchtime knitting to get this little guy done! Definitely wouldn't take that long if you were able to knit it out in the open and not in secret!

Next up is the gift I made Barb, Alex's mum, for Hanukkah - the Damson shawl by Ysolda Teague! This pattern is available in Ysolda's book Whimsical Little Knits 2 or can be downloaded as a stand-alone pattern from Ravelry (I have the book and love it)! This was my first shawl and there was some frustrated ripping out, but I like the way it ended up. The only thing I'm sad about is that I don't have a better picture - unfortunately I kept forgetting to take pictures of it on the weekend when it was sunny and only snapped this the night before it was gifted.

For the shawl I used Malabrigo Sock in Persia, which I got from Eat.Sleep.Knit  - I saw "got" because I didn't purchase this skein but rather won it from one of the scratch cards that they always include (coolest thing ever by the way!). I picked both the base and the colourway but I must say that when this skein arrived I was a little disappointed - the base is absolutely lovely and with really generous yardage but I find (especially with the finer yarns) that Malabrigo's colours vary wildly! The picture for this colourway shows much more turquoise-green, and way less dark green and brown (this includes both the picture on their website and the picture on Eat.Sleep.Knit). Such is the way of hand-dyed yarns of course, but I find that Malabrigo tends be more widely varied than those from other hand-dyers.

So I guess you'd like to know who won the Kate Spain Good Fortune FE bundle, hmmmm?! Without further ado the winner is...

Taryn of from Pixels to Patchwork

Congratulations Taryn! Send me an email with you address and FQS will get your bundle out to you. I must admit that I'm a little jealous of your win... who am I kidding - I'm jealous every time someone wins something from FQS off my blog because for the most part I don't have any of the fabric myself! Sad but true.