Yarn Club and More Year in Review

I just signed up for my first yarn club!  What is a yarn club you ask?  

Well, basically it is a subscription with an indie dyer or spinner were on a regular basis during the subscription period you will be sent a skein in an exclusive club colorway or yarn. Many times there is a theme to the club that the colorways are inspired by. The theme for the Mean Girls Yarn Club is that all of the colorways are inspired by the bad girls (and sometimes boys) of movies and literature. Sign ups for the current episode opened today and there are a limited number of spots available so if you are interested or just want to check out some of the colorways and their inspirations from previous episodes check out the blog.

And now for more year in review:

First up is the Rosie Hat from Stefanie Japel from her Craftsy class Circular Knit Lab; Hats 4 Ways. I took the course so that I could figure out how to knit in the round for the sleeves of my cardigan I wrote about last week. Incidentally this sweater is the Shapely Boyfriend by her as well, which I forgot to mention previously. After finishing the sweater when I was planning my next project which involved some cabling which I had also never done before, I decided to make this hat to practice the magic loop method of knitting in the round and I would get to work a couple of cables as well. If I remember correctly I worked almost the whole thing while we were driving to the Circleville Pumpkin Show

After the hat I was confident enough in my cabling abilities to work the Sherwood Sweater by Angela Hahn for my son. I abandoned the cable needle pretty early on as these were simple 1x1 crosses and I found it much simpler to do without. 

This sweater is worked in the round from the bottom up to the separation of the sleeves then the front and back are worked separately back and forth before they are rejoined with a three needle bind off at the shoulders. Stitches are pitched up at the armhole openings an the sleeves are worked from the top down in the round. He only wore it a couple of times before he grew out of it, but it was a great learning piece since it was a completely different construction method from what I had done previously.