First snow and knitting round up

We had our first snowfall of the season yesterday. I'm truly not a snow fan, but this was one of the good ones...gorgeous big fluffy flakes that fell gracefully and stuck to the grass and trees but melted off the sidewalks and streets. Just enough to make everything look pretty.
Today is supposed to be sunny and mild so it will probably all be gone by tomorrow.

Remember a few weeks back I posted about my aunt who gave me her Pfaltzgraff dishes? Well, being a knitter, you just KNOW what my thank you was going to be...The pattern is Monkey (no purl variety) and the yarn is Socks that Rock medium weight in Lagoon. The colors don't come out very well in the photo...they aren't nearly that glaringly bright. The socks have been sent off and I'm hoping they are keeping her feet toasty warm.

Since this blog has been sadly devoid of knitting content of late I thought I'd post some photos of my current WIPs.

First up are the Nutkin mittens. These had been languishing in the bottom of the knitting basket for months. With winter now here, I decided I better get in gear and finish them. The pattern is quite easy to memorize. It is actually a sock pattern that I'm modifying to mittens. These should be finished in a week or so.

Next are my current socks...
Stonehenge socks. This is the Twilight pattern from 2 at a Time Socks and the yarn is my handspun Crown Mountain Farms BFL. They are so soft and the colors are gorgeous. I'm in total love with CMF. I've heard people rave about how fabulous their fiber is and I must add my voice to the chorus. I believe the prep is top rather than roving so it drafts like butter. There are virtually no slubs or imperfections of any kind. Plus they give you a generous 8 ounces of fiber.

My other purse knitting is a pair of plain vanilla socks in JL Yarns Savlia. The yarn was super cheap and is quite fine in weight. I'm knitting them on US 1 since that's the smallest needle I had available. But I'm thinking I might go down to a US 0 for the next pair.

The final project I'm working on is a Charlotte's Web shawl.I am totally enamored with this shawl. I'm using 5 skeins of Koigu KPPPM as the pattern calls for. This is sock weight yarn so it's a bit heavier than the lace weight shawls I had been working on. Something about cold weather calls for knitting with heavier weight yarns. Lace weight seems to me to be better suited for warm weather knitting! Many folks knit this shawl with Socks that Rock and I do think that would be stunning, but it's cost prohibitive for me at the moment. The pattern is extremely easy to knit and goes fairly quickly despite the nature of triangular shawls with each row getting longer than the last. I'm about 14 rows from the end. I'm going to have to start thinking about what type of edging I want to do. There's a crocheted edging or a fringed edge. I love the look of the fringe, but I hate actually doing fringe so I'm still thinking about it.

Once I finish up the shawl I'm going to go back to the Fylingdales sweater I was working on last winter. I think I'm better than 50% done with it and should be able to finish it up this season. The Colour Your Own Philosopher's Sweater is still hiding in my closet too. That's a much more daunting prospect as I'm only midway done with the first sleeve! But I'm sure it will see action at some point this winter.