First things first, the winner of the KAL prize drawing is Jodi! Congrats Jodi! Thank you again to everyone that participated. I had such a great time that I will definitely host KALs for future patterns. a Rafflecopter giveaway
Since the beginning of the year, I've been making an effort to keep my queue both up-to-date and manageable. I used to use it as a "maybe I'll knit this someday" and suddenly it was overflowing. I likely wouldn't have lived long enough to knit my (pages and pages) long queue. So now, once a month or so, I'll check it to make sure that all of the patterns I've queued are things I'll actually knit. I also check to make sure they're things I want to knit soon. Soon is the keyword there. Everything in my queue is something I'd knit in the next 6-9 months. Most, I already have the yarn for and I just need to get to it. Organizing my queue has kind of become an obsession to me, but it definitely makes it easier to choose my next project.

The top 5 patterns in my queue are:

1. Bayside Pullover by Hannah Fettig; I'll be knitting this for MadMay in Tosh Merino Light in Wash.

4. Oak Trail by Alana Dakos; I have a skein of Tosh Vintage in Weathered Frame set aside for this. I might try to also squeeze this in for MadMay, but no promises.
5. Gramps Cardigan by Kate Oates; I was gifted the pattern (thanks Monica!) and yarn (thanks Mom!) as birthday presents, so I'm especially excited to start this. I have KnitPicks Swish Worsted in Dove Heather set aside for this project.

I knit mine out of Cascade Heritage in Anis and Cerulean. I love these shades of blue together! The yarn is soft and light. The entire shawl weighs only 96 grams, which makes it perfect for Spring and even into Summer where I live. I have enough of each color left over to knit the inverse, so don't be surprised if that's my next color combo.

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Happy Friday!

We're in the home stretch of the Colorblock Shawl KAL! And as expected, we have a few more FOs up on Ravelry - congrats to Sonntagskind, rijelviolet, and TheNattyKnitter for finishing your shawl. I have a few more rows to finish by Friday and man are those last rows L-O-N-G. I've also been a little distracted by other deadline projects in the last few weeks, and haven't been able to give my WIP as much time as I wanted (I'll stop pouting now). I will finish it though, and I'll be back on Friday to prove it!

In other exciting news, the Colorblock Shawl pattern hit 500 downloads last week! I am completely speechless. I never thought as a brand new designer (it's still weird to say that) that my pattern would have so much attention in less than a month. It hit the "Hot Right Now"* on Ravelry for several days when it launched and now to have this many downloads, I'm just blown away. So a big, big thank you to all of you that have queued, favorited, and most importantly knit this pattern.

*Hot Right Now is a section on Ravelry with the top 20 most popular patterns. It's based on an algorithm that tracks queueing, favoriting, linking in forums, and a few other things. With the millions of patterns on Ravelry, it's a tough feat to make it to the HRN.



And just as a quick reminder - you don't have to finish the KAL to enter the prize drawing. The only requirements are that you cast on before this Friday, April 12th, and leave me a comment telling me what yarn you're using. All of the other entries (emailing me photos to post here, posting a picture on Instagram with the hashtag #colorblockKAL, following me on Twitter or BlogLovin', etc) are all optional, extra entries. And each time you post a photo on Instagram with the hashtag, you can come back to this widget for another entry! To make it easier to enter, I've added a KAL tab to the top of the blog - just click there and it will take you to the newest KAL post with the widget.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I'll announce the winner 1 week from today in a new post. I don't blog on the weekends and I want to be fair and wait until Midnight April 12th before drawing a winner, so I hope you can stand the suspense!

We're halfway finished the #colorblockKAL and we already have 4 FOs! Congrats to the following Ravelers: WoolDiaries, oocha, joha123, and SarahElana on some spectacular shawls.

I've made a bit more progress this week. I'm about halfway through the MC (Cascade Heritage in Aris). With the holiday weekend, we did a lot of visiting family and this has been the perfect project to bring in the car. I was also able to mindlessly knit on it while catching up with family. I've worked on a few cable-heavy projects recently (here and here), so it was really nice to bring my knitting with me and not have to worry about keeping track of rows, stitch counts, etc. I'm still loving these little bird stitch markers.
And just as a quick reminder - you don't have to finish the KAL to enter the prize drawing. The only requirements are that you cast on before April 12th and leave me a comment telling me what yarn you're using. All of the other entries (emailing me photos to post here, posting a picture on Instagram with the hashtag #colorblockKAL, following me on Twitter or BlogLovin', etc) are all optional, extra entries. And each time you post a photo on Instagram with the hashtag, you can come back to this widget for another entry! To make it easier to enter, I've added a KAL tab to the top of the blog - just click there and it will take you to the newest KAL post with the widget.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We've made it through the first week of the KAL and we already have our first FO! Congrats to WoolDiaries on Ravelry for being the first to finish!

I have loved seeing all of the progress on Instagram, although I haven't made much progress myself. I've had a lot of knitting (and other, non-crafting) deadlines to meet this week, so I haven't had as much time to knit this as I would like. It's a quick knit, I'm just feeling slow lately. I'm just about at the color change and should be able to switch to the main color today. I decided to do the darker color at the point and the lighter blue as the main color. I'm pretty sure that I will have enough of each color to knit the inverse at some point too. Maybe that will be my third version.

I'd also like to thank SarahElana for sharing a pic of her WIP. I love her color combo - it's the perfect combination of bright sunny yellow and moody gray. I think it will be wearable year-round and I can't wait to see the FO!

And just as a quick reminder - you don't have to finish the KAL to enter the prize drawing. The only requirements are that you cast on before April 12th and leave me a comment telling me what yarn you're using. All of the other entries (emailing me photos to post here, posting a picture on Instagram with the hashtag #colorblockKAL, following me on Twitter or BlogLovin', etc) are all optional, extra entries.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope everyone has picked their yarn and freed up their needles because it's time to cast on for the Colorblock Shawl KAL! I don't know about you, but I had a really tough time picking yarn. I finally decided on two different colors of Cascade Heritage. I went for two blues this time - Anis and Cerulean.

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival this past weekend. While I was there, I did pick up a this beautiful skein of Misty Alpaca Handpainted Sock yarn in the color Manu. It's a blend of alpaca (shocker!), merino, silk and nylon, and there are 437 yards in the skein. Want to know the best part? It's going to one of you as a prize for the KAL! Just use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter.



a Rafflecopter giveaway
There are a variety of ways to enter and you can post pictures on Instagram (use hashtag #colorblockKAL) up to once a day, so there are plenty of chances to win! (FYI: Your IG feed has to be public or I have to be a follower for your entries to count. Leave your IG name here if you entered and need me to follow)  The Rafflecopter widget will select one winner on April 12th (the end of the KAL) and I'll announce it here, so be sure to check back. Good luck and I can't wait to see all of your projects! Happy Knitting!

Thank you so much for all of your sweet comments about my Colorblock Shawl pattern. I really appreciate all of the support! Imagine my surprise when I discovered two really exciting things happened Friday on Ravelry - they now have 3 million members, and my pattern made it to "Hot Right Now"! I was (and still am) totally stunned. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Colorblock KAL is on and we are scheduled to cast on next Monday, March 18th! I hope this gives everyone enough time to select yarn. This is a great stash-busting project since the entire shawl requires less than 500 yards. Knowing that, I went rummaging through my stash to see what I wanted to use for the KAL and much to my surprise came up totally empty handed. I did discover that I have a ton of gray yarn. I really wanted to do something different than the first one, so I'll have to do some quick thinking. I purchased a few color combinations from my LYS over the weekend, but I haven't decided yet. I'm headed to the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival this weekend, so I may just buy yarn there.

As I mentioned last week, this KAL is going to be very flexible. I'll make a post once a week (each Monday) starting March 18th and ending April 12th where I'll post updates. I'm also planning to post updates to Instagram, so please follow along there as well. If you're on IG, you can use hashtag #colorblockKAL. If you'd like your WIP photo (or FO photo when we get there) featured in a post, please email it to me by Sunday of each week (be sure to leave either your Ravelry name or blog address so I can give proper credit!). For next week's post, feel free to email me about your yarn picks. I can't wait to get started!