new year knitting

I’m not one for making new year’s resolutions (I’m not sure whether that’s from laziness or a healthy dose of realism) but this year, when it comes to knitting, I have at least begun as I mean to continue.

Last week I hit the shops with Woolystuff and made the knitters’ pilgrimage to the famous sales of John Lewis and Liberty.  I wasn’t expecting to buy much yarn, but came away with quite a stash – enough for three cardis, plus a few skeins of cashmere.

To celebrate our yarn goodies, we wandered around Soho and enjoyed some goodies of another kind:

What a brilliant day all round – a good friend, yarn sales, and Italian pastries.  Perfect.

Anyway, I was determined that my new yarn wasn’t just going to sit there, so on new year’s day I turned two skeins of the cashmere in to this:

Pattern: Crofter’s Cowl, by Gudrun Johnston.

Yarn: RYC Cashmere Tweed, two skeins.  I could have made it a bit longer, but cashmere is precious stuff!

I spent the entire day knitting and ended up with cramp in my right hand, but I really wanted it finished!  I think part of my need to knit a super-fast project was so that I could convince myself that I’m actually using this new yarn, and not just adding to the stash.  (For future reference though I think I should stop knitting things that are so difficult to photograph.  This cowl is the most tricky combination of dark colour and poor stitch definition!)

The cowl also worked out to be the perfect form of procrastination to avoid my uni assignments, but that’s another issue.