Oolong knits

I can't believe I managed to knit two tops in one month! And I had so much fun! It was so much quicker than I expected. Of course, these have no sleeves, very little fabric on the chest and top of the back and are knitted in relatively large needles. So, I didn't have to knit that much. These tops are not amazing, but they were an amazing knit. Why? Because I was incredibly lucky with the amount of yarn I had and, last but not the least, I had very minimal expectations about both projects which they very much managed to surpass. Let's make a list... I had both yarns in my stash for many years and didn't expect to find a project for them after so long. The coloured yarns were left-overs from another project, the white yarn had always been too little to make a top. To be honest, both yarn amounts seemed too little, which is the reason I was ecstatic when I succeeded on knitting these projects. I did have to use needles one size larger than recommended and self-dr...

May was kind of a silly month for me. Let me explain. I was planning on knitting a stranded colour-work sweater and I had been planning the design for a long while. By planning, I mean, I had both drafted a couple of patterns and knitted quite a few different swatches. However, my last attempt at knitting a colour-work sweater was a big disappointment and left me feeling like I needed to practice doing a lot of stranded colour-work before I started another challenging project. Last year, I did just that and finished not one, but two hot water bottle covers and all went very well. Last month, I knitted a stranded colour-work beanie and again all went perfect. Both those experiences gave me confidence, but when the day to cast on for my sweater arrived I chickened out and, instead, started a cowl. That was fine. It's a gorgeous pattern and a real pleasure to knit! But... but I felt like I just wasted my time. I definitely need to practice to work colour-work flat (and maybe some co...

For April, I wanted a small project, that would let me keep focus on my March project: the beautiful Purpurea Sweater by Teti Lutsak and, after finishing the sweater, still leave me some time to continue my February project (a self-drafted blanket). I decided to do a mosaic dishcloth, fun and quick!, I thought. But, that felt extremely underwhelming when I finished it in less than one day; maybe too much fun, I really couldn't put it down, and too quick for sure. It felt good to go back to work on the sweater already on the 1st of April, but, let's say I was feeling like I had fallen for an April's fool prank. To add insult to injury, I ran out of yarn for the sweater! So, that gorgeous sweater is currently in hibernation. Now, I was really thinking that April had taken away my mojo. I tried to look at the bright side: plenty of time to work on the blanket, maybe even enough to finish it, but... I couldn't keep my motivation. So, I decided on converting my April p...

My project for March 2026 is a gorgeous all-over cable sweater by Teti Lutsak, one of my favourite designers (at the very top of the list!). This is the Purpurea Sweater. I casted on for this project on March 1st, as planned, and I'm going to try to not neglect my February blanket, which is far from finished. I managed to do about one fourth of the bind-off last month, but this is not a simple bind-off, it's a lace border. Not too complicated, but it's still a lot of work and slow going because, even though the rows are very short, I have to turn the work twice for every stitch I bind off! I'm enjoying both these projects immensely, so: no complains at all. Addendum: remember that in January I couldn't find a sweater quantity of yarn in my stash? Well, I still can't. I frogged a sweater my husband no longer used (because I knitted him a handful of better ones in the meantime) and I'm reusing that yarn instead of buyi...

Note: I'm using a photo of Jared Flood's Quill as a placeholder until I finish this month's project and take a decent photo of it. My project is not identical to this one, but similar enough, I guess. I'm continuing my challenge for 2026 this month, but I chose to do something slightly different in February. It all started the month before, when I was planning to start a new sweater, even though I hadn't finished my January project yet (far from it). In principle, I have enough yarn in my stash to knit for over 2 years (based on my yarn consumption of last year), but, in practice, I realized I didn't have a single sweater amount, even if I joined different yarns in order to do some colourwork (at least, not if I wanted to like the final piece). After close inspection, I discovered that a large portion of my stash consisted of Drops Alpaca yarn. However, most of this yarn was effectively in use in 2 projects, my January s...

Note: I'm using a photo of PetiteKnit's Cumulus blouse as a placeholder, until I take a decent photo of my January project. My self-drafted pattern is quite different from this sweater, but I couldn't be bothered to find a better picture. I finished almost all the projects I'd started in 2025 before the end of the year and ended up unexpectedly casting on a new project on the 1st day of 2026. Throughout January, as I knitted this project, I found that I rather enjoyed knowing exactly (and without having to do any calculations) when I had started the project and for how long I'd been knitting it. This is how it occurred to me that I could challenge myself to start a new project on the 1st day of every month in 2026. My January project is a simple v-neck worked using a self-drafted contiguous recipe. The neck and cuffs are made of a double-knitted band and the hem in half-twisted rib. This is a very simple recipe, completely seamle...