Austin, Texas

Abe and I spent one week in Austin, Texas for our anniversary.  Here's my recap, in no particular order.

We rented this cute cottage for a week in SoCo, a super cool neighborhood in South Austin.

Here are some of the sights from the neighborhood.

Within walking distance from our house their were not one, but two cupcake shops.

Sugar Mamas, which was my favorite...

..and Hey Cupcake.  Here is a cupcake Abe ordered, with a shot of whip cream injected into it upon request.

Torchy's Tacos had the best Baja Shrimp Tacos, we went here three times.

The Broken Spoke = famous.

We drove out of town to go to The Salt Lick, super amazing bbq.

For our actual anniversary we went to Artz Rib House, for some more super amazing bbq.

We went to The Austin Zoo, which I have to say is the best Zoo I have ever been to. It's a non-profit that houses rescued animals.  Definitely check it out if you are in the area - it's only $8 to get in.

There were peacocks and chickens just cruising around everywhere.

Abe sketches a pig.

Abe talked to Freddy the gray parrot - he said hello and meowed.

We have arrived home to a blizzard here in Maine.  High of 72 today in Austin...

Mothers Cardigan in GGH Soft Kid

Doodlesknit of Sydney, Australia recently completed the Mothers Cardigan in one of my favorite yarns, GGH Soft Kid.

Didn't it turn out great?  She shares a few words on the cardigan.

I finished my cardigan in December o8. The GGH Soft Kid I chose suited a 5mm needle. It was a quick knit, although I did find myself knitting the back almost twice, because I mis-crossed a cable and didn’t notice for quite a long time (maybe I though it would magically ‘right’ itself if I just kept knitting). Just as well I had plenty of yarn and could discard the used yarn, mohair is bad, bad, bad to frog and it de-fuzzed as I unraveled.

I really like this design, it has lots of waist shaping so is very flattering and is the sort of classic style that shows off a yarn or (vintage) buttons really well. It was very easy to do and, once knitted up, the pieces fitted together perfectly.

I made practically no modifications. Only a little lengthening of the sleeves and increasing the buttonholes to 3x cast off/cast on stitches rather than a yarn-over. No matter what size of button I chose I think I’d do this detail again and simply sew up any excess buttonhole. Since the facing folds back on itself, buttonholes have to be matched up together with a few stitches anyway and buttonholes rarely come out neatly so the more ‘tidying’ that can be done the better.

I’ll certainly do this pattern again, I can see it becoming my ‘go-to’ pattern for a cardigan because it lends itself to further adaptations. I can see a shorter more closely fitted version in my future, or a version with different placement of a cable or with a variegated yarn. Of course it’s also a great way to show off vintage buttons!

Ariosa Hat for Classic Elite

Classic Elite just posted a free pattern for a hat I designed using their Ariosa yarn.  Cecily Glowik MacDonald also writes a sweet little review of Closely Knit.  Thanks, Cecily!