A bit of a Mosaic stitch obsession.

I have been knitting since I was 10 or 12 years old. I made my first sweater when I was 12. I still remember it. A variegated raspberry colour yarn. Probably Canadiana worsted. This would have been 1963 and there were no fabulous yarns that were available at that time. In fact, I would bet, there were no fabulous yarns period.

I accidentally knit two fronts for the same side. When my mom said I would have to ravel one back, I said "no way" and solved the problem by having one side "wrong" side out and the other one "right" side out. To balance that, I put one of the raglan sleeves in "wrong" side out as well.  Hmmmm, me thinks the lazy side of me - or the designer side of me - emerged in that sweater.

Too many sweaters later, I still love making them. I have a blue cupboard full and work hard to wear one every day. Unlike store-bought sweaters, I keep them forever. Occasionally I reclaim the yarn and make something else. I have a few sweaters that had a previous life.

So these days, I am doing more cowls and socks and fewer sweaters. And these days I find myself hopelessly in love with all things "Mosaic". I think I am late to this party, since there are 112 pages of results on Ravelry. I just think a wonderfully talented young designer made it extremely popular right now. Four cowls down - at least two more colour plans bagged and ready to get started.

More mosaic in this beautiful sweater. which was finally soaked and blocked this week. It is by the same designer who did The Shift.  Her name Andrea Mowry and the pattern is available here. If you go to that page, you will see that she has sold 998 patterns for this sweater. And the combinations are incredibly delicious. Seriously, pour a tea or coffee and take a peek.  Because you will also want to check out all her other patterns. Yikes!!!

Not quite off the needles yet are these "Ugly Duckling Socks". Pattern here. A different Mosaic, but Mosaic all the same. They are a Christmas gift for my son-in-law - his favourite colours. There will be at least one more pair of these.  A Christmas present for my husband, who requests a pair of new socks every year. As the pattern says, this is the perfect solution for an orphan ball of striping yarn that isn't quite as beautiful as you had hoped. Just put a solid with it and voila.

When these are done, I can move along to cowl number 5. No addiction here!!!!

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Shift #4 Done and Jeffrey Approved.

Here are some pictures of grand-dog Jeffrey with his dad in their matching cowls, both knit from The Shift pattern by Andrea Mowry.

Pretty darn adorable, even though it proves that I have lost it. The good news is that there was enough yarn left over from Matt's cowl to make Jeffrey's without adding anything else from the stash. They are truly matching.

The amazing thing is that - as mathematically challenged as I am - I somehow figured out how to adapt the pattern to be half size. And it worked!!! I ended up eliminating some repeats from the different sections on the pattern. I figured if I had the same number of stitches on the two sides of the seam, when it was done,  it would be OK. And I was right, it seems. 

This picture is "Taffy" the model I used to make sure it would go over Jeffrey's head. I was so relieved to find out that it did. This is the first project that I have shared on Ravelry, because I thought maybe some folks might like to see the modifications.

I can't recommend this pattern enough and have a few more versions of it sitting in my stash.  With my new life with PMR, most of my sweaters are too warm, so a cowl is perfect. 

I don't see any more dog versions in my future. lol. Now onto some mitts for the two-legged "grands".