Happy New Year. Happy New Projects.

Socks, socks, hats, hats, hats. That was the end of December and the beginning of January.

Rick's birthday is January 5th and the only thing on his list was another pair of socks. Which I completed in the nick of time. The first pair I have knit in Briggs & Little Durasport, which I am hoping will stand up to his wear and tear. Here they are, enjoying a little fireside time. 

Next on the needles was my latest "reincarknition". I rediscovered a cowl I knit a few years ago that I never wear because I didn't like the fit. So now I have turned it into a hat, which I have already worn a few times. The yarn was perfect for both projects, but is much happier in this Andrea Mowry "Flicker and Flame" pattern. 

Here's the "before" cowl.

And here is the "after" hat. 

I actually had the pom pom in my stash, and it is a perfect match - what are the chances of that!!! The colourwork looks complicated, but is a piece of cake, thanks to the colour shift in the variegated yarn. 

So with all these "sprint" projects out of the way, it was time to plan for a "marathon" one. And I had the perfect pattern in mind. The pattern is called Desperate Housewife and it has been in my favourites since it was released by Melanie Berg last year. When you look at the pattern, you realize it has 7 contrast colours for all the stripes, and I realized that it was a big "stash buster" possibility. 

Between my sister Nancy's stash of sock yarn and my own, I was pretty sure I could come up with something that would work. Here is a picture of the first "ball swatch". I actually knit this to see how things would go together. 

From the knit swatch, I ruled out the lime green and the bright confetti yarn. I also realized that the red was too primary for all the other colours. I substituted a sage grey-green for the lime. And I got a solid dusty pink to replace the confetti. And a variegated dusty red/grey yarn to replace the red. 

I have just finished knitting the first sequence of all the colours together. And I am very happy with the choices. You can see that, compared to the designer's choices, my colours are a bit more muted. Turns out they look like a lot of other things I have in my knit wardrobe, including the hat above. (You can also see my experiments with different yarns that I taped to the picture.)

I am also very happy that two of the colours in here are from Nancy's stash and three are from mine. Technically, the sage is also from Nancy's, but she gifted me that yarn a few years ago. Although I had some grey in my stash, there wasn't enough of the same colour to be the ribbing and button bands to come.  (Yikes, formatting glitch here, not sure why.)

Now that the sleeve stitches are on holding yarn, the body stripe sequence should go a bit more quickly. At the widest part of the yoke, after the last increase row, I had 420 stitches on my needle. That is a long stretch around the needle. And this is a long, below-the-butt sweater, so the stripe sequence repeats 1.5 times in the body - and then let's not forget the sleeves. (Oh, and pockets too, oh my.)

As I said, a marathon. And I know I will be short on that last blue/grey variegated yarn at the bottom. But, I have a few "runners up" in my kit to use on the sleeves. I really don't care if they don't match exactly. I am not "Desperate" to get it done in any timeframe, and find it very relaxing to just "knit" for a while. 

Since Nana's blanket, this is the biggest project for a very long time. Perfect for the snowy months ahead. Would never have brought this much yarn in my luggage to Barbados, but staying put for this winter makes this the perfect project.

On to the second repeat I go.

Thanks for reading.