Gruggle and March of the Turtles

Just popping in here briefly to assure you that reports of my demise are greatly overstated.  What can I say, it's Lent? Holy Week next week, so the end is in sight.  Meantime, enjoy a photo of some flowers in my garden:

And also to share a quick accessory that I made late in the fall: Kate Davies' Gruggle.  

I wanted to like this pattern, but the truth is that I didn't enjoy knitting it, at. all.  It was so boring after a while that I struggled to finish it.  It is a nice size and very warm for being fingering weight, but I've also struggled to find ways to wear it.  Don't know if it is the color or the style.  

My main mod was to increase needle size at every break in the pattern to create a funnel shape and I'm glad I did.  I wish it was slightly wider at the bottom than it is, but fingering weight on size 7 needles was already pushing it for fabric density and tension. 

I'm still poking away at Kate's Cowal pattern--similar, but somehow less boring?--and that pattern has you go up on needles at some point too.

And in ongoing sweater modifications Because Juliana is Freezing All The Time, I added turtlenecks to my Not A Bláithín sweater and my Rustbelt Mackworth, and I'm super happy with them now! I love the weight of those sweaters for winter (stranded knitting is so warm!) but did not love how cold I felt in them because my neck was bare.  The Mackworth neckline was always too wide on me in any case.  It was the work of a few hours and now I have two extremely useful sweaters after letting them mostly languish this winter.  I had lengthened the hem and cuffs about 1/2" in the early fall, but it was such a minor change it wasn't worth noting here.

And yes, I know.  I need to address the elephant in the room at some point: the weight loss.  I've lost about 60 pounds in the past year and am still finding my way with how I feel in my body.  Short answer: very strange.  But hey, at least my hair isn't coming out clumps any longer.  Small mercies.