Finished Niftyness!

I just finished this little number from the list of projects at my Stitch & Bitch group on Tuesday last:

It's a free pattern from Knitty, which you can find here. Go check out the other free patterns, I'm always finding a million cute things to make on there!

The yarn I used was a bit smaller than the yarn the pattern called for, so I went up a couple of needle sizes. This was my first ever knitting pattern with lacework so I am very proud of how it came out! And the yarn is a super soft, 2-ply, hand-spun, tweedy wool/alpaca blend I got from a local yarn store so it feels nice to wear.

Even after blocking it though, it turned out a bit smaller than the pattern said it should. I knew I should have swatched first. Despite that fact, I love wearing it and it is one of my favorite things I have knitted thus far. I made the buttons from some great vintage sateen with a cover-button kit. The instructions for where to place the buttons were a little hard for me to follow for some reason, so I just kind of winged it and I think it came out just fine. Then I wove some purple ribbon through the bottom edge to use when I want to wear it as a hat.

Progress on the rest of the unfinished projects is going slowly. My biggest problem is that I have such a short attention span that I work on each thing here and there, bringing them all closer to completion but not really finishing any one thing. Oh well. I have decided that even though I will most likely not finish everything by the deadline, I am not going to start anything new until all the old stuff is done.

One thing that will help me along is that my friends Sylvia, Jill, and I are doing the Holiday Arts Festival at the Richmond Art Center again this year. It was a rousing success last year and this year they are doing it for two days instead of one, December 3rd and 4th. I am so excited, and two of the things I have on my list of UFO's, the owl pincushions and crocheted wristwarmers, will be going to the fair. Admittedly, I will have to be starting some new things for this but I figure it's okay since I will also be finishing things from the list. More on that later!

*If you would like to sign up for the Finish It challenge, you can e-mail me at ohthecuteness@hotmail.com or go to this post and leave a comment, and be sure to read all the rules. Be sure to include a link to your blog if you have one, and go join the flickr group here. The list of participants and links to their own unfinished objects is here. And my ongoing list can be found here.