First UFO spotted - and shot down!

Forgive the poor photographs but - the first finished project of the year has appeared!

Lila and Claudine's 2013 Advent Scarf by Lila Agnew was an Advent Knit-a-long from Lila and Claudine's Yarn Shop. This was the second year for this KAL where you knitted a section of the scarf each day of Advent.

The pattern designer chose 20 very easy patterns and each pattern download came along with a devotion. Some people finished on time and others (like me!) finished when they could.

Some of the patterns were wavy and some very geometric.

With this brown-green yarn, the patterns reminded me of 

our trip to see The Cloisters museum and gardens, the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art that exhibits the art and architecture of medieval Europe.

I am going to enjoy wearing this!

Round and round

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you pull a project out for a few rows here and a few rows there . . .

I brought along my Skeins Shop Hop Missoni Cowl to work on when waiting for movies to start, slow times at book group, quiet moments during Sunday School and, yes, even church. I picked up this free pattern at the 2011 Minnesota Yarn Shop Hop at Skeins in Minnetonka. There isn't any pattern information on Ravelry and the shop doesn't have a website (!) but I think the pattern was written by someone at the store. 

I wasn't able to get the special limited edition Mountain Colors yarn so I used another color way - Bitter root. It's a hard color to photograph - either it looks a little drab or it looks florescent. 

It's a fairly narrow zig-zag pattern that you can wear long or double up. Lots of fun - I recommend both the pattern and the yarn. PLUS - the Doubleknit Podcast Fans group on Ravelry is having a Deep Stash KAL during all of 2013.  It's all about knitting up items out of older stash - and this yarn was from 2011 so my project counted! I'm off to post my cowl on the finished items list. 

Next projects in the queue -  the final inches of Final Blue Fantasy Sweater sleeve and my Breezy Cardigan. No KALs to participate in except my own "Finish this stuff up so you can cast on" along!