New to You MAL 2022!

Hi friends! My sister and I are getting ready to wrap up our annual New to You MAL for 2022. One week to go!!!! For the past few years we have been running this fun make-along to encourage people to learn new things in the fiber-art realm. Every year we have generous friends and fellow makers, podcasters, and small business owners join in the fun to donate lots of prizes. I am grateful to every single one of them. It's a win-win for us and them. We get to encourage people with prizes (I mean come on...who doesn't love winning prizes?) and they get to promote their business or just spread kindness. Win, win right?!

This year I was hoping to do a few things but so far only had time to do two. But I'm very happy about the two things I tried.

First up....BRIOCHE!!!! Funny, turns out I think I have done a few different forms of brioche and just didn't realize it. I made this "First Brioche Hat" by Jared Flood. I used some left over bulky yarn. The colors are very Halloween! I'm so glad I tried it. I enjoyed making it and I want to make some more garter stitch projects. In the past I was turned off to a pattern when I knew brioche would be involved. Now I won't be! I'll be ready to jump in and cast-on.

Next up:

I have a weird love for elbow pads. When my boys were babies and I could dress them however I wanted, I loved old man cardigans with elbow pads! Garrett had this little blue corduroy blazer that had tan leather elbow pads when he was 4 years old. I loved that little jacket!!! Anyway...I knitted the DRK Everyday Sweater by Andrea Mowry over the past two weeks and I wanted to add a little something to it to make it "my own." I came across these cute heart shaped elbow pads and I knew they would be perfect! I was going to make them in a contrast color like most elbow pads, but decided to make them in the same yarn as the sweater. Just a little "something" to catch your eye but not stand out too much.

I followed the pattern for the "Grown Up Hearts" found on Tin Can Knit's blog from February 2015. Very easy and quick. I just did them this morning so they are blocking right now. I'm going to try to sew them on over my lunch hour today. I'm really excited about these!

I will add them to the back of the sleeve. Hopefully that process is easy and I can get them to line up! That might be the trickiest part of this whole project.

So.....if you haven't yet, you still have time to enter our make-along! Just use the #newtoyoumal2022 on instagram with a picture of your project. You don't have to finish it! Just trying it will enter you!!! If you are not on Instagram, you can hop on over to our Ravelry page and enter it there.

The New to You MAL will close on Monday, February 14, 2022.

I might try to squeeze one more thing in before next week....we'll see!

Cheers!