lila

Simple brown pullovers aren't the most exciting things to knit or blog about, but they do go with pretty much everything in the closet. What makes Lila special is the short row shaping happening at the lower body and the exaggerated garter stitch hems. This was made as part of the Lila KAL hosted by the drea renee knits group. Unfortunately, I had to take a short break from it while traveling to Vietnam and so missed the KAL deadline. Quite happy with how it turned out despite a little scare towards the end when I thought that I had overestimated the amount of positive ease intended. It was looking huge and several drastic measures to shrink it were running around in my head (dryer, hot scalding water and blowtorch just to name a few). But the final fit isn't too bad and I like that it's roomy enough to layer over flannel shirts for the colder months. We've been in a cold spell the last few weeks here so this sweater has been seeing a lot of wear. Hopefully the cooler spring weather will last through this weekend for Maryland Sheep and Wool (yay! so excited!) because I love seeing all the handknits on display. But just in case it gets too warm to wear a wooly sweater, I'll have my sheep heid at the ready. Here's what it looked like last week when the cherry blossoms were still in bloom:

Have a great rest of the week everyone!

bullseye

A few months ago, I decided to join Ysolda's follow your arrow 2 knitalong. With some trepidation I started on the first clue, not sure where all of this would take me. You see, mystery knitalongs and I have not had a good history together. But this time around I was determined to throw myself into the mystery and to trust that Ysolda would not steer me wrong. I also set some strict rules: no cheating and sneaking peaks at everyone's choices before deciding my own and each clue had to be finished on schedule. And this is what I ended up with:

Clues ABABA. The yarn is just some knitpicks palette that was in the stash. I wanted to keep the color light and neutral in order to highlight all of the textured stitches. I think that Ysolda really outdid herself with this knitalong. It was a joy to knit from beginning to end and I loved seeing everyone's progress along the way. And the icing on the cake is ending up with a shawl that I am thrilled with.

journeys

The last few months have been chock-full of journeys, both big and small. Most memorably, I traveled to Vietnam to visit my parents and had a wonderful time seeing the country through their eyes. Not surprisingly, most of our focus was centered around food :) I spent a lot of time at the numerous markets shopping, exploring and trying new things.

My mom doing her best Lunch Lady impersonation. This food stand was featured on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations.

One of the highlights of the trip was a tour of the Mekong Delta.

Seeing the floating markets first hand was pretty amazing.

We also had an opportunity to visit several fruit orchards and some local cottage industries. I loved seeing all the different varieties of fruit grown in the region.

Such a peaceful place compared to the hustle and bustle of Saigon, where highrises are sadly taking over the landscape:

I am hoping to return in a couple of years to explore more of this amazing country.

I'll save the smaller journeys of the knitted kind for the next several posts. In the meantime, there's lots of catching up and visiting to do. I've really missed being present in this space but felt like a break was necessary. Hopefully with the school year winding down and with work becoming less crazy, there will be more time to spend on the fun stuff.