Well, so far so good.  I finished my first project of the year (though to be fair, I did start it a few days before the end of 2016).  Here it is – my Day of the Dead cowl…

I’m pretty happy with it!  The stripy border does have a tendency to flop over, as other knitters of the project have noted.  But it does look pretty cool!  I have enough yarn left over that I cast on a “negative” version of it, with the colorful yarn as the background and the black as the foreground.  Will post pics when I have it done – I’m interested to see the contrast.

The other project I have actively going right now is a Sherlock-themed mystery knit-along that Jimmy Beans wool has going in honor of the new season.  For anybody not aware of the new Sherlock, it is fabulous – watch it!  I was going to give this project a miss, but the special theme yarn hooked me.

As a bonus, it gives me an opportunity to learn brioche, which I have resisted up to now.  (As a mostly product knitter, I generally need a good reason to learn a new technique – such as when learning it will result in a finished item I want.) The three clues are being released as the episodes of the new season are being aired.  The first was released yesterday, and the next two will be on subsequent Sundays.  The game is afoot!

In other news, I am gearing up to do my first colorwork sweater  – the Princess Line Sweater.  This is a pretty straightforward stranded colorwork item.  I did my swatch and got all my tools lined up.  I bought the kit for it a year or two ago, shortly after finding the pattern in a book and falling in love with it.  The DotD cowl (see above) was also prep for this project.  Tension of the two yarns is one of the keys of getting stranded colorwork right, so I wanted to do something little to get my hands in gear.  Just a few odds and ends to tidy up, then I’ll be getting this going!