This week I have mostly been knitting (and wearing)...

So this week I cast on the Averill Vest, from Knitscene Spring 2012, in the Morris Empire I bought in Sydney.  Here is my progress thus far (I am a little further on now, after doing some work on it last night):

The colours alternately pool and stripe - possibly due to my usually eccentric guage - but I don't mind pooling and quite like how it's turning out.

Averill has been my work-a-day commuting knitting, but yesterday at home I picked up the Larissa wrap, which I started for Julia just before we went to Australia.  Larissa is an old Marie Wallin pattern from the Rowan booklet Arabesque, and as I had some amethyst Little Big Wool in deep stash, I started it for her.  I won't have enough to do the sleeves, but thought I would make it a sleeveless wrap vest - sometimes better with bulky yarn anyway.  I finished the back yesterday but here it is half done, in the "knitting nook" in my lounge room:

I got a lot of knitting done yesterday!  That's because, despite it being mid-March, it is snowing in the UK - yesterday was a vile day, with a freezing east wind blowing in sleet.  The only sensible thing to do was knit through the afternoon.  The only good thing about this kind of weather is that I can keep wearing my heavy winter hand knits - Surface yesterday, and the grey (from my anthracite obsession, which has now ended thank goodness!) Garter Stitch vest today, both with a mustard long sleeved tee underneath, dark denims, and accessorised with brooches.  I love brooches on handknits - to some degree handknits always feel a bit retro to me, and brooches set that off perfectly.

Here is Surace fastened with a brooch:

Here is Helsinki , mentioned in the next paragraph (I have since blocked it, to great effect):

So what other handknits are working in my wardrobe?  I took Surface to Australia, both for slipping on during the flight (it is knit in RYC cashsoft, so the lux mix of fine merino and cashmere is perfect for a situation like that), and wore it once when sitting outside at my sister's house in the cool of a summer evening.  I also took Helsinki (the Sand and Sea shawlette from Coastal Knits), and wore it as an accessory out to dinner one night. 

I am hoping the Averill vest will be suitable for work wear - my handknits are mostly weekend wear and it would be nice to wear more than handknit scarves/shawls and socks to work, as most people know I am a keen knitter.

My plan for today's snowy weather - a bit of sorting and organising at home, and maybe a bit of sewing!  Stay tuned...