I'll be back later today to announce the first blogiversary pattern winner and put up a new contest. Stay tuned!

As promised, here are the last of my Mad May projects. One of my best friends is pregnant with her first baby, a girl, due at the end of the summer. Since we had just attended a shower for our other close friend, Kelsey knew I was going to knit her something. She just had no idea what. I was happy to fulfill my duty as the friend that knits and make that something she knew was coming.

Her baby shower was last weekend. The shower was beautiful, though very pink! Not that I'm complaining, I love pink. In true Jenn fashion, I knit a pink sweater and matching hat. I know what you're thinking, but don't worry, the sweater is a 6-12 month size and the hat stretches a lot. Plus it gets cold where she lives in mid-September. Trust me, I thought about all of that. After having two winter babies and receiving beautiful summer clothes for them in newborn sizes, it's ingrained in me to pay attention to the seasons.

Over a year ago, I bought 2 skeins of Madelinetosh DK Twist in Faded Calico - this really beautiful dusty, pale pink with slight tan undertones. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but it was too beautiful to pass up. When Kelsey found out that she's expecting a girl, I knew immediately the Faded Calico had her name all over it.

Don't forget to go enter the blogiversary pattern giveaway here!

One of the gift knits I made during May was a Cabernet Infinity Scarf in Madelinetosh Tart. I knit it for my mom, and doing that turned out to be a very lucky decision!

A little backstory - at the beginning of May I decided I would knit Window to my Soul and Pressed Leaves for Mad May. I figured a fingering weight cardigan and a complex leaf cable motif hat were more than enough to keep me busy. I know, I know, I should have known that I would stray from my plans. Anyway, I never really planned to knit a Cabernet Scarf, but a friend talked me in to it and I'm so glad she did.

I frantically cast on a Cabernet Scarf in Dahlia after a battle with my Window sweater. Almost immediately, I fell in love with the stitch pattern. It's beyond beautiful! As soon as I finished, I knew I wanted to knit a cowl for my mom too. As much as it pained me to do it, I had a skein of Tosh DK in Tart in my stash that I knew would be just perfect. If you're not familiar, Tart is this incredible (and I mean a-maz-ing) deep, complex red. It's seriously unreal. While I really love Tart, I can buy another skein. Only the best for my mom!

Monika Sirna (the designer of the Cabernet series) hosted a celebration in her Ravelry group on May 24th. Anyone that had a current WIP of one of her patterns and posted a picture in the celebration thread was eligible. So I entered my Tart Cabernet cowl. Naturally, I also entered my FO in the Mad May KAL thread. Imagine my surprise when I won prizes in both threads! I was totally shocked and obviously really excited. I think it's the universe's way of paying me back for giving away a hand knit made with Tart. Thanks universe - you keep this up and I'll be knitting gifts left and right. You might even get some Tart.

Project Details:
Pattern: Cabernet Infinity Scarf by Monika Sirna
Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh DK, Tart
Needles: US 6 (4mm)

Have you knit any gifts recently? What were they? Were they well received?

It's been pretty quiet around here for the last week (sorry!), and I'm sure this coming week will be more of the same. I haven't been blogging because I've been furiously knitting the last of my Mad May projects. I was able to complete 6 projects for Mad May, which is about 4 more than I thought I'd be able to do. It worked out so that 3 are for gifts and 3 are for me. That's a pretty good ratio, right?

I've already shared my Pressed Leaves and Dahlia Cabernet cowl. Over the weekend I finished my Window to my Soul. I could not be happier with this sweater, especially given it's shaky start. I was worried about completing a fingering weight cardigan in less than a month, particularly after having to start over. However, this knit up much faster than I thought it would - 3 weeks of on and off knitting.

I haven't made any progress at all on my Mad May sweater, but I did finish a cowl!

May is crazy, or maybe I am. Since my first post about Mad May, I've finished one project, ripped out the other, and have started two more. And for some reason, I'm still under the delusion that I'm going to finish them all in the next 3 weeks.

One of the new projects I cast on is a Cabernet Scarf. It's one of the official MadMay KALs. I'm using Tosh DK in Dahlia, leftover from my Calligraphy Cardigan. I've been eyeing the Cabernet patterns by Monika Sirna since they were published last year. The full series includes a cowl pattern (in 3 yarn weights and 4 sizes), a hat pattern (in 3 yarn weights and 6 sizes) and a shawl pattern. The cowl pattern comes as one pdf with all of the weights and sizes, which I find really nice. As a bonus, it's also 10% off until the 15th with coupon code "MadMay2013". I wasn't sure what size I wanted, so I swatched and decided on a medium in DK weight. It should be about 23" x 10" after blocking. The perfect size to just pull on, but not too close to the face.

Or back to stitch one. Anything to make frogging an entire WIP sound better.

Last week I declared the war on charts to be officially over. I was clearly the victor, since I am no longer scared of them. Well, earlier this week I discovered that I made a pretty big error on my MadMay sweater, Window to my soul. I was almost finished with the raglan increases when I spotted said error on the second lace repeat. I decided to rip back to the mistake and fix it, since there was no way I was going to tink all.those.stitches. I fixed the mistake, but then inexplicably, my stitch counts were totally off. Like half a lace repeat off. I don't even know. 

So instead of trying to figure out what the heck went wrong, I just ripped the whole thing out. I probably spent less time doing that than figuring out the problem, and at least now I know it will be right. Re-knitting has gone a lot smoother this time. Probably because I am more familiar and comfortable with the lace pattern, having knit it so many times (trying to find a silver lining here). I also learned this handy trick for knitting the smocking stitch. I'm especially thrilled with this little technique because I really don't like cable needles.

Do you know what today is? Yes, it's the first of May. But that means it's also the start of Mad May! For those unfamiliar, Mad May is a series of huge KALs (knit-a-longs) hosted in the Madelinetosh Lovers Group on Ravelry. There are several specific pattern KALs and a slew of general KALs. As a part of the General Sweater KAL, I've committed to knitting Window to my Soul by Joji Locatelli in Tosh Merino Light in Wash.