All good things must come to an end.

And it looks like today is the end of the lovely, spring-like weather we've been having for the last couple of weeks.  Oh well - it's good weather for knitting!

Knowing that winter would eventually return, over the weekend I got started on my first pair of legwarmers:

This is my second go.  The pattern calls for the ribbing to be done with a double strand.  I couldn't really see the reason for this, but I did it anyway, hated it, ripped it out and started over with a single strand.  On the first try, I also used the needle suggested, a US 3 (3.25mm) and it was just too big.  I should have known:  I always use a 2.75mm needle with fingering weight yarn!

When I started over, I used my 12" circular.  That lasted about 2 rows!  I think my hands are just too big to hold on to those tiny things!  Now that I'm on the DPNs, things are going much more quickly.

In reading the notes for several other Ravelers' projects with this pattern, it seems many people found the legwarmers to be too large, and omitted one whole pattern repeat (15 stitches - not insignificant).  I went ahead and did the whole 90 stitches, thinking that I could use this end over my knee and decrease rather than increase half way through.  But last night I tried it on, and it stretches quite snugly over my calves, so there's no way it's going to fit over my knee!  So increases it will be!

The original pattern calls for alpaca yarn, and I do think it would be prettier in alpaca.  When I ordered, WEBS was out of all the colors of alpaca I liked, so I chose this Cascade Heritage 150, which I'd never used before.  I like it, but I do wish it were a little smooshier.  It's not very forgiving of tension issues, as you can see in the ribbing.

Yesterday I also traced the pattern for my next sewing project, but that will be a different post!