Mimosa

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  Ours was really nice.  New Years wasn't much.  The family slept and I worked but Christmas was wonderful.  

I was so proud of Hayden.  She'd spent Christmas Eve Eve at her other grandparent's and she normally has a little too much fun there and comes home exhausted and a little grouchy.  I was a bit concerned about how she'd behave Christmas Eve at my nephew's house, in a strange house, with people she rarely sees, make that loud people she rarely sees, and withoout a nap and past her bedtime...  But she did fantastic!  She walked in, made herself at home and had a blast playing with my sister's grandkids. She even sat at the kid's table to eat and didn't need any help from her parents. The only time she got upset was when we took the book away from her so that someone else could do the traditional reading of The Night Before Christmas.

As for my Christmas Eve Cast On project, I cheated and cast on a few days early.  It's a sweater for Sarah that was actually a Christmas gift for her.  I thought I'd be safe because Sarah announced she wanted me to knit her the sweater early to mid December.  The pattern is Mimosa, a free pattern on Ravelry.

The sweater's design is super simple.  It's basically just a few rectangles sewn together and it's knit with US15 needles with mohair-like yarn.  Being free and so simple, the pattern doesn't even provide gauge but it does mention what yarn the designer, Ola Otuli, used.  I decided I'd use the same yarn just to be safe.

A brief internet search for the yarn took me to an Etsy shop, DewKnit in Lithuania.  I was pretty excited because Etsy's shipping esitmator thing said the  yarn would arrive between December 19 and January 5th.  Perfect, I thought.  It would never arrive before Christmas so I could wrap up a note and there'd be zero expectation of having a knitted sweater under the tree on Christmas morning.  Or so I thought.

Well, the yarn arrived on December 20th.  Thankfully Sarah is an understanding big girl these days and still didn't expect the finished sweater to be under the tree.  She has, however, checked on it's progress daily ever since  the yarn's arrival.

The sweater is knitting up quickly and I'm enjoying the yarn.  It's hairy like mohair but it's a wool/alpaca blend rather than being actual mohair.  And I'm loving it.  Mohair tends to make my hands sweaty and I feel like I end up with more fiber in my eyes and nose than on the needles when ever I've knit with it.  But this  yarn, this yarn doesn't shed like mohair.  It doesn't shed at all.  I can knit wearing my black work pants with no worries at all.  It's super soft and did I mention how fast it's knitting up?  If it wasn't for that pesky job of mine, I probably could have had the sweater knit and under the tree Christmas morning.

If you decide to knit yourself a Mimosa sweater, and you plan to use the yarn, Drops Melody, as mentioned in the pattern, I highly recommend you order from DewKnit.  Yes, the yarn had to travel from Lithuania, but it made the trip quickly, even at Christmas.  The yarn was packaged well and the customer service was great.  I won't hesitate to order from DewKnit next time.

And now I'm off to knit a few more rows.  I can't wait to hear about what everyone else is knitting in the the new year.