I’ve been going through a particularly stressful couple of weeks. It will all lead to great things and changes for me, but its been trying at times and left little else in the way of craft, knit, bake, make, think, read, breathe.

So last night, I finally decided to put time aside to hit bed early and to take a new project with me. Since the end of 2014, I have put myself on a yarn buying moratorium. I have quite a large stash and wanted to work from that, save money, and reduce the amount of bins I have with sweater amounts of yarn for projects I thought I wanted to knit but never got around to, or inevitably changed my mind about.

Enter my latest cast on, the amazing Birdie Fair Isle Sweater by the amazing Hannah Fettig of Knitbot. I just love her patterns, especially because they are often top down, which I’ve learned just fit my body better than bottom ups. I’ve finished most of the fair isle chart in one evening and its a 100% stash busting sweater.

The body (or main color) is Malabrigo Merino Worsted in frank ochre, which I have had in my stash since about 2007 (wow). The fair isle detail is a combination of: polar morn for the border, natural for the background, and Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in nest for the birds.

There isn’t a thing I don’t love about this cardigan, so far.