An ending, a beginning and an ultimate demise

I haven't completely abandoned my knitting during my hiatus. I worked on it here and there. I often couldn't make it to SnB. Many of the nights I did, I had the Little Dude with me; which means friends and fun, but no knitting. Despite the small amount of time devoted to knitting I am keeping my promise to myself. For every thing I knit for someone else, I must knit something for myself.
My first two finished objects I have no pictures of. I knit a pair of Knucks as a gift for the guy that does my hair. And as the 'Me project' I knit one for myself. Not a pair of Knucks, mind you. Just one...to replace the one I lost from this pair. I had more than enough yarn left to make the replacement. You can easily get two pairs out of one skein of Silky Wool.

The ending from my title is I have finally finished Little Dude's vest. Granted it was meant to be an Easter vest, but I'm just glad I completed it while it will still fit him.

Let's start with the specs:
Pattern: Cable Tank Top by Debbie Bliss
Yarn: Plymouth Yarn Encore Colorspun DK
I loved this pattern.I worked on the much of this project while recovering from my surgery. The cables are very easy to work in this project. And I mean, able to knit while on medications ending in -ocet without major (and even minor) mistakes. The most challenging part, I found, was picking up the stitches for the arm bands. The yarn color wasn't the best option to show off the cables but it was what I had in stash that would work, and he liked the color. He has been out of sorts since I completed it, so I don't have a picture of him modeling it yet. I promise to post it as soon as I do. Here's a detailed look at the back.

Don't you just love these buttons? They were a little gem I had in my button collection. Someday I'll post about my button collection.

From there I jumped into a "Me project". My Ishbel. This project started with a trip with some dear friends to Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft Fair. I hadn't indulged in yarn for a year, or at least that I can recall. I was child and husband free on this day and I succumbed once again to Ball & Skein. Kris did twist my arm, ever so slightly, but that was hardly necessary. This is the booth where I could easily lose my head. I left with only two skeins of Sock 416 in the lovely shade 'Atlantic'. I knew it was destine to be a shawl, but which one. I had yet to decide on a pattern to pair with the two skeins I had procured the year before. I scoured Ravelry and queued about twenty-some-odd shawls. It was when I saw the finished projects of two of my friends that I knew Ishbel was it. And here it is so far:



As for the demise....it is time to say farewell to my first pair of socks.

I've made several of this pattern over the years and these socks are the work horses of my winter footwear. Paired with store-bought knee highs, these keep my tootsies toasty on those cold winter days in the warehouse that is our shop. Normally I would go to the trouble of darning and repairing. However, this pair had been slightly felted and wasn't worth the trouble of fixing. As you can see Isis inspected the damage and found them not worthy of repair.

So now I must get a few more skeins of Foliage and knit some more. Ideally I'd like to have at least a weeks worth of boot socks, and now I'm down to three pairs.