It's In the Bag

I'm pretty sure I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I had subscribed to Jimmy Beans Wool's Big Beanie Bag.  It's a once per month bag of goodies that includes a pattern along with yarn to make it, and some nice little notions like Heel foot cream, Clover darning needles, Lo Lo Cuticle Intensive and others.  It's like a happy little surprise that shows up once a month at my door and it currently serves two purposes - 1) I tend to forget to include accessories in my regular knitting which is the main staple of the bags, and 2) it keeps me from binge spending (so far) on massive amounts of yarn to feed the stash (The Husband should rejoice - I'm trying to knit my stash down).  I've gotten two of them to date and have finished projects to show from both.  You can choose warm colors, cool colors, or neutral colors.  I chose neutral.

The first bag, which is the one I previously posted a picture of, included four shades of Rowan SoftYak DK and a pattern for wrist warmers.  

I modified the pattern a bit because it called for the thumb increases right after the beginning of the round and I thought it would be best to offset them so that I could hide the round on the underside of the warmers.  I used the little trick to hide the offset stitch for the color change that I found online, but a knitter can still tell where the rounds begin.  Plus, seeing as how I hate weaving in ends, I managed to carry the yarns up the "seam" of the warmers by alternating which color I "caught" at the beginning of every two rounds or so.  Yay me!  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and the yarn is an absolute dream.  Soft and beautiful.  I need something else out of this stuff.  Um...that is, after I've knitted down my stash a bit.  

The second bag contained another four colors of different yarns* and a pattern for a cowl.  The pattern seemed to have issues from the posts I read on the Big Beanie Bag discussion group on Ravelry and I really wasn't very keen on it anyway, so I searched through my Barbara Walker Treasury of Knitting Patterns and found a four-color pattern that I liked that fit with the original pattern's 95 stitch cast on.  I'm pretty keen on the result:

Four-Color Fancy Pattern, page 59

The only thing I'd do differently is that I'd increase the cast on by a few stitches.  It's a snug fit over the head (although I do have a rather large beaner).  But it does fit and if and when the weather gets cool here in South Mississippi I'll be wearing it proudly.

Never mind that it was 90+ degrees when I put this on.
And whose old lady chin is that??

Speaking of South Mississippi weather, while I love that I never have to shovel snow or drive on ice-covered roads down here, there are moments when I really want to move back to the north in order to take advantage of the cold weather and knit all things wooly.  Is that weird, do you think?

Lisa

xoxo

PS - Will post pictures of my granddaughter in the dress I knit from my last post soon!

*Yarns used were:  Juniper Moon Farm Moonshine, HiKoo Kenzie, Berroco Maya, and Plymouth Mushishi.  Liked them all.