Finished Things: Fir Trees & Wee Gnomes!

I finished my second May KAL project this week, the Fir Trees Cowl by Marly Bird. It's blocked and ready for seaming this weekend - all in all, it turned out pretty well! I had a few false starts and some bumps along the way, yet somehow my mistakes are not as visible as I feared they'd be. Not that I'm complaining! This was my first time knitting with angora yarn (Seraphim from Bijou Basin Ranch) - it was incredibly soft and held up quite well to multiple froggings. The Fir Trees Cowl is classic example of a deceptively simple pattern that I just can't seem to stop messing up - I think my final count for re-starts was 4. Even though it's going to be quite hot this weekend, I'm looking forward to wearing my pretty new cowl since I worked so hard on it. And it was worth it!

I also whipped up a trio of Tiny Gnomes from Teeny-Tiny Mochi Mochi this week. A simple, fast knit - the perfect project to start after finishing a lace project, really. I glued magnets on their backs and gave them to my friend Ellen for her birthday on Wednesday (she was pretty psyched!). For some reason, I decided the gnome with the harvest gold-colored shirt needed a grey beard because he was from the 1970's. The other guys are much more traditional (and, I suppose, much older) with their bright white beards which producing a kooky glowing effect when photographed. Clearly, I had a lot of fun making these...there is probably more gnome-making in my future, since it was kind of hard to give them up!

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