Hold up, did this just become a knitting blog? Because I seem to only write about my knitting lately. Maybe it's because I've been sewing repeat and/or easy sewing patterns and idk if you guys are interested in my no frills sewing. Are you? If so, I'll make more of an effort to write about them.


In exciting knitting news, here is my What the Fade shawl for the Drea Renee Knits Mystery Knit Fade Along. Yeah, I joined in on another MKAL, I think I'm addicted. It is so so so fun doing mystery projects, you guys. I picked out six colors that blended in together (and by "picked out" I mean I bought a kit of five yarns and then added the pink one from my stash) from Republic of Wool, one of my very very favorite indie dyers of all time. I love speckled yarn, especially when blending between two colors.


I started the MKAL on August 31st and finished it on October 7th, which is power knitting for me. Fingering weight yarn takes forverrrrr to knit (I may or may not have mentioned this on my blog recently 😉) and I am pleased with how quickly this went from strands of yarn to a legit shawl. It might have went faster if I wasn't messing up the brioche so many times. There was some ripping back, and by that I mean I restarted this thing five different times, which was annoying. At first.

Sidebar: I recently watched this video by Jocko Willink and it really really pumped me up. Go watch it and come back here when you're done, it will take 2 minutes and 19 seconds of your life.

Did you watch it? Messed up your brioche stitches and had to start over? "Good." Niece aggressively tried to lick you and you dropped a bunch of stitches that you don't know how to pick up? "Good." I'm changing my mindset in knitting and sewing and life. I hope you'll join me.


Anyway, this is my first two color brioche project and it was extra fun with the color fading/melting. The pattern is exclusively brioche and garter, so once you get the hang of doing brioche it's an easy one to memorize and the color changes kept it interesting. Andrea made incredibly helpful video tutorials that were the only reason I even knew what was going on. That's not to say that her pattern isn't well written, it is, but I really needed the visual help to learn two color brioche. So, thanks for the well made and well written MKAL, Andrea!

The cool thing about thing about this is that it's completely reversible and you don't have to worry about an "ugly" side showing, yes!!!! And compared to my last "fade" project weaving in the ends was not bad at all. The end pieces were a cinch to hide in the brioche legs and into garter edges. I'm all about quick and easy end weaving 👌


There were instructions for optional tassels on the three corners, but I'm not about that life right now and can always add them if I change my mind. Overall, I'm really really happy with the finished product. I've got another huge shawl and life is awesome. Now comes the fun part of planning my next knitting project 😊

Thanks for reading! And remember: "good."

Living the knit life since 2013 and falling more in love with it everyday. At this point I think I knit more than I sew. Typically, I like knitting things that I will actually wear (socks), but every year I treat myself to a sweater. With the mild climate here at the beach there isn't a huge demand for warm cozy sweaters, so they aren't usually on my needles. However, when Andrea Mowry released the So Faded sweater pattern I knew I wanted in.


Can I just say that I love indie yarn dyers? I love supporting small businesses (this goes for sewing pattern companies too!) and I loveeeeee buying yarn. It's actually probably considered an addiction at this point... Would that make it a habit or a hobby? Or both? The indie yarn used for this sweater was bought from Junkyarn. Kemper (the owner, dyer, and all around badass), made life really easy for me by dyeing up kits for the So Faded sweater and you can bet that I was sitting around waiting for her shop update because I HAD to get my hands and needles on these beautiful yarns. You can check out my Ravelry project page for more info on the yarns, or you can just stay here while I gush over Kemper and her fun speckled yarns idc. It's a fingering weight project (code for "this took forever to knit") and the yarn is made up of 75% merino, 20% nylon, 5% stellina. The stellina gives the glittery sheen that may or may not be visible in these photos, but makes me happy inside. And let's talk about the second yarn from the top. Two words: Leslie Knope. Yeah, that kinda sums up the fact that this yarn rules at life.


 So Faded (the pattern, not me being drunk) was a fun sweater to make and drama free aka had good instructions. It's knit in the round with circular needles, top down, and the sleeve stitches are left on scrap yarn and then knit after the body. Honestly, the most confusing part of the pattern was figuring out the math for fading the colors in and out out, but that wasn't even bad because Andrea gave the exact formula and you just had to plug in your numbers according to the size being knit. Maybe it's just me, but I freeze up and my eyes cross when I see math equations ugggggh. Guess you can tell that I wasn't the best mathematics student hahaha.

While the pattern was an easy one to follow it was time consuming to make. Making a sweater from fingering yarn is no joke and is not a quick knit by any means. This took around 3 months to complete, but I really lagged on the sleeves and worked on other projects in the meantime which added to the long time frame. If I worked on this project solely I could have gotten it finished sooner than I did, but life is way more fun with multiple knitting WIPs in my world.


My least favorite part about making this was weaving in all those ends. Jeeeeeze that took forever. I guess that's just the downside of "fade" projects in general. End result is worth it though. Fav part are the pops of garter stitch on the shoulders, it gives the pattern a little something special.

Would I knit this again? Maybe. No fault of the pattern, but man, it took a while to knit and it's going to be a minute before I'm up for another project of this scale. IF I do give it another shot I'm going to size down because I would prefer a closer fit. This is a little looser (my bad) because I thought sizing up would be a good idea and it wasn't. I wanted it to be more oversized and it didn't end up that way. So I should have went down a size or up a few sizes. Not complaining though, this will still be on my body WHEN THE TEMPERATURE DECIDES TO NOT BE 80-105 DEGREES EVERYDAY 😠😡😠😡 K, I guess that was a complaint and I don't want to end this post on a negative note, so I will emphasize that I do like my sweater and I like the black walls that my husband and I painted in my library. I have been wanting black walls for eight years (I can pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with the idea) and it has finally happened. So excited. That's all.