OH, HEY, LOOK, IT’S SNOWING AGAIN! YAYYYYYY UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…..  Guys.  Enough with this winter.  ENOUGH.  I’m standing on a two-foot snowbank here, or at least, what I’m hoping is a two-foot snowbank and not a pile of trash covered in snow.  (Fun fact: in NYC, at least in the outer boroughs, garbage trucks are used as snowplows, so it’s been weeks [WEEKS!] since the garbage has been picked up.  Luckily you and your neighbors get to eyeball everyone’s leavings and speculate about their Coke/beer/gallon-jug-of-olive-oil consumption.  Seriously, how do those people down the block have MULTIPLE gallon drums of olive oil in their trash?  Do they drink it instead of morning coffee?) If there’s a silver bullet for lousy weather, it’s knitwear!  There’s something so comforting about a hand-knitted sweater, isn’t there?  It’s the perfect antidote for February sadness.  I’m not a very fast knitter, but it’s fun to do during long evenings (and means that all the hours I’ve spent watching Torchwood this winter aren’t a total waste). First things first, this squishy Berroco Vintage was a gift from the lovely and talented Stephanie at Makes the Things!  She offered to send me some goodies that she was destashing, and I gratefully snapped them up!  It’s not a color that I would have chosen myself, but I thought it would look great with my ever-present blue jeans.  Now that it’s done, I really like the color!  As an added bonus, it looks nice with my Bough hat!  Thank you SO MUCH, Steph! I’d never used Vintage, which is a blend of wool, acrylic, and nylon, and I wasn’t sure how well it would react to blocking (since natural fibers block happily, but man-mades generally don’t), so I wanted to avoid a project with cables or lace.  Hannah Fettig’s Effortless Cardigan is a super popular pattern, but I wasn’t the least bit interested in it until I saw Ping’s oh-so-gorgeous version.  She described her sweater as a “wearable blanket”… ummmmm, yes, please!  I knew immediately after seeing her cardigan that this yarn would become one. It’s a top-down raglan cardigan with acres of stockinette, so it was pretty straightforward knitting.  It came together quickly- I knit the majority of it over my Christmas vacation, and finished the rest in spare moments here and there.  It actually blocked nicely, which was a pleasant surprise.  I HATED how it looked when I finished knitting it- the ribbing looked so gross- but everything smoothed out after a serious wet blocking.  I lengthened the body by 1″ and the sleeves by 0.5″, but I wish I’d lengthened the sleeves more.  It’s not the end of the world, though.  Those were the only alterations I made. I asked Man Friend if I looked like someone’s grandpa when I was wearing this, and he replied, “A little bit… but, a cozy grandpa”.  I guess I don’t mind looking like a cozy grandpa! What are you guys up to lately?  Friends in the Northern Hemisphere, are you busy knitting?  What are the rest of you up to?  I’ve been sewing and sewing and sewing lately, but between secret pattern testing, sewing for a friend, a future Mood Sewing Network project, and a slew of started-but-not-finished projects, I don’t have anything sew-y to show you.  Hopefully I’ll have some finished garments (and some organization in my sewing space) coming up soon!