I finally have pretty photos of both of the projects I finished during the Finish it February challenge. I'm so happy (and proud of myself!) for getting these completed in one month. I really needed our groups to help with motivation! Here are details and photos of my 2 finished projects. If you are thinking about mixing in some of our yarns into Stephen West or Andrea Morwry's patterns, I hope this inspires you to try and provides a little guidance. If you have any questions, as always drop me a line in the comments below. 

Amazing Technicolor Dreamsweater by West Knits

I had so much fun knitting West Knits Amazing Technicolor Dreamsweater. It took me about 8 months but I did finish, haha! My gauge was definitely bigger than the called for gauge, resulting in a more tunic-y fit but I still adore it! When I started to put yarns together for this sweater, I centered the color theme around our Wildflower cotton yarn in color Gardenia. It’s a beautiful mustard that I adore right now! So all of the other yarns really filled in to fit together with that yarn and color. I love West Knits patterns because I love using up my stash yarns and experimenting with color and texture in new fun ways. He is such an inspiration in this regard. This sweater did not disappoint - just like my penguono! The other colors I used were mainly in the mustard, peach and warm neutral family. I used a mustard Manos Maxima (which is one of my fave yarns ever) as well as many indie dyer skeins that I picked up at Rhinebeck last October. It was all very random! I mixed in a lot of skinny mohair skeins as well. I always mixed at least 2 yarns together, except for our own bulkier Knit Collage yarns. I just love knitting in this way and creating a piece of wearable art (kinda?!) from whatever I have.

For the top sleeve and neck inset, I decided to keep it all ivory for a nice contrast to the body. I used 2 old stash skeins I had in similar colors marled together for this portion. I wanted a little extra strength there since I knew that portion would be holding up the rest of the sweater body, which is fairly heavy. In our Knit Collage yarns, see the list of yarns below. I recommend only using our yarn in 1-2 row increments so that you don’t throw the gauge off too much as they are bulkier! You only need a little of each. I know, the weaving in of all those ends - not ideal but the end result is so worth it!

Wildflower in Goldenrod
Gypsy Garden in Stardust
Sister in Camel and Driftwood
Spun Cloud in French Vanilla and Creme Brûlée
Daisy Chain in Natural Aura

And here are a few photos of this sweater, see more on my ravelry page post here. On the Ravelry page, I posted many in progress shots that may help guide you on yarn choice too!

Free Your Fade Shawl

This was such a fun pattern to knit by Andrea Mowry! I followed this pattern fairly closely to the original and knit it entirely in DK or close to DK weight yarns. The only wildcard I added in was my own Knit Collage yarns. In this shawl I only used our Wildflower yarns. These yarns are 1” thick strips of printed cotton fabric. I knew that might be a little too bulky for this shawl, SO I ended up ripping the fabric strips in half and that did the trick. I love the way the Wildflower yarn looks so subtle and pretty mixed in with the other yarns. I did not ‘fade’ the Wildflower yarns in, I just randomly striped them and did the fade with the other yarns I chose for this project.

I used these Wildflower colors: Ochre Rose, Beatnik and Tribal.

The other yarns I used were a mix of Anzula and Woolen Boone! So darn pretty in DK weights. Pics below and more on Ravelry here.

I've been wearing it non stop and plan to make one for my mom too! If you are interested in seeing my notes on my Penguono and how I mixed yarns together for that style, check out this post.