FO Whispering Blackbirds

This is the carry I was referring to here and yes it is done, worn several times already and I totally love it :-)

First of all the story behind this goes back a long long way.  In fact it goes back to 2009, the year I knitted my first ever socks

which in turn led to my year of buying sock yarn.  It was also the year that we took Mr A back to Scotland to visit some very special places and people.

While I was in Scotland I really wanted to buy some special yarn, preferably hand-dyed sock yarn, as a souvenir of our trip for me.  Unfortunately it wasn't until a few weeks after we returned to NZ that I discovered Old Maiden Aunt yarns which has since become a firm favorite of mine.  I adore all of the yarn Lilith produces and next time we are in Scotland I am definitely going to visit her studio and make sure I have some money $$ put aside for some stash enhancement.
Anyway 2009 was also the "Year of the Homecoming" in Scotland and Lilith's color range for that year was called the Homecoming collection.  I may have got a little nostalgic and collected a few of the beautiful yarns from that collection

Ae Fond Kiss

Fraoch - Heather

Dreich

Lon-Dubh

Red Red Rose

I purchased two skeins of the Lon-Dubh (blackbird) and immediately started my Whisper Cardigan by Hannah Fettig.  This is where things started to go astray, first of all I decided I may be cutting it fine with just two skeins as I intended to add a lot of length to the body of the original pattern, then I had gifts to knit and this got put aside. When my third skein arrived it was a lot darker than the original two and the thought of getting my head around alternating skeins meant that this wee baby stayed in hibernation even longer.  Then it was winter, I was pregnant and completely lost my will to knit, it was summer again but I had a newborn to look after...etc etc.  Finally about 3 weeks ago I decided it was time for this to come out of retirement and get finished!
To my surprise I had nearly finished the sleeves/back which I got out of my first skein of yarn with just a bit left over.  Then once I made myself sit down and pick up all the stitches for the ribbing it was all go.  I am so pleased I have finished this now and I can see it will get a lot of wear through spring/summer.  The ribbing and the body are still slightly darker than the sleeves/back due to alternating the darker skein in but I don't think it is that noticeable and it certainly isn't a problem.  With the wonder of hindsight I now know I would have just squeaked the whole thing out of the two original skeins but never mind.
So here it is my Whispering Blackbirds.

And a couple of quick modeled pics taken by Mr A, I will have to try and get better ones soon.

A note of thanks has to go to my knitting group who constantly told me to shut up and keep knitting as I sat complaining of the seemingly endless ribbing, you were right it was all worth it in the end :-)