Happy New Year to me...

I cast-on for Lyra just after New Year's Eve 2008, as my holiday gift to myself, and I finished her this week. I feel this is an accomplishment, considering all the other projects I have been working on! You can see LucyFur supervising my blocking. I used a 50/50 merino cashmere 2/28 yarn from ColourMart, in a "Candy" color. I started with one 150 gram cone and I have some left over. I soaked her in warm water while I went out for dinner. I started my blocking by pulling out the four corner "expansions," and the four smaller side "expansions."
I used more pins than I care to count. Let me just say that I am glad I stockpile nice pins...
As you can see, I did the square version, where every other "expansion" is doubled to create corners.
You can see the large flowers, where you use crossed stitches to make the lovely texture.
You can see how the leaf motifs grow from the center, and my clean center start. The extra "noise" you see behind the center is just the starting yarn end that I have not woven in yet.

This was a really special knitting project and I feel I learned some new tricks. As knitters before me have noted, there is an engineering flaw in this pattern which causes some binding where the frame around the large flowers begins to curve in. I think I could correct it if I knit this piece again, but there are so many wonderful designs out there I believe I will move on!

I hope to be back this weekend with a warp on a loom (I really hope...) and some thoughts on holiday knitting. I believe we can do at least two more original projects this year before I cast-on for my 2009 Niebling. Until then, knit (or weave, or spin) on...