Hello! It’s snowing again. This should not surprise me. It’s March in Ohio.

I spent most of my studio time today preparing knitting for my trip to Oklahoma. Because I am taking four sweaters to knit on for the week. FOUR. The Oa, Midnight Merino Raglan, and two new ones: Cricket Hitofude and Meara XO.

I think we can safely call this The Year of the Sweater.

This is a merino and silk yarn in colorway Cricket for the Hitofude cardigan. This is my spring cardi I wanted to wear with my new tunic. It didn’t take me long to work out what I wanted.

Have you ever seen the Gilmore Girls episode when Lorelei is preparing for her wedding with Luke and all the planning falls together seamlessly so she knew it was meant to be? That’s what happened with this sweater.

If you’ve seen that episode, you know it turns out to be ill fated, but let’s stay positive and assume Cricket will come together seamlessly. The top of the cardigan is begun like a shrug. Have you ever knit a shrug?

Also, are you participating in Make It Yourself March? I am participating on Instagram, and one of the prompts later in the month is “most worn.” In preparation, I photographed myself in this shrug I knit about 10 years ago.

I wear this shrug every winter, most recently over this Mata Traders blouse. It’s knit from Knitpicks alpaca and silk, and the pattern may have been Knitpicks too. I can’t remember.

That first photo is a little goofy, but I never know how to pose myself in photos, so I typically ham it up.

It is also, according to Skeinherder, Malabrigo March. I thought that was the perfect excuse I didn’t need to buy a single skein of Malabrigo in my favorite color, cerulean. (That’s fun to say.) What will I make? I am thinking I will make the perfect beanie. When I know what that means, I will let you know.

Here is my tweedy Fibre Co. Arranmore yarn in colorway Meara. I’m calling the sweater Meara XO because it’s an all over cable pattern with XOs down the center front and back.

The pattern, Staghorn, is from the book A Fine Fleece. I like calling it XO because in The Expanse (and apparently the military) they call the executive officer XO. I secretly want my staff at work to call me XO as a term of endearment. But, as you know, nicknames cannot be forced.

Look at this hank of gradient yarn that turned out to be five different hanks of single color yarn. Boy do I feel stupid. I guess I’ll have to buy another hank of verifiably gradient yarn so I can knit my Bramen Cowl for the first lesson from Year of Techniques. (I copied Quiteayarnblog.) There were so many techniques on the list I didn’t know, I signed right up!

I think I’ll hold off on buying the yarn so I have an excuse to go yarn shopping in OKC when I’m there.

I’m still reknitting the bottom of my Carbeth. I’ve had to rip it out twice. But I think third time’s the charm on this one.

I’ve linked to two other bloggers in this post. I really blog for the community. Thanks for reading my blog and being part of my community!