FO: hey, princess! <– ravelry project page
yarn: moda dea cache, bought years ago on sale at a craft store.
needles: US size 7 (4.5 mm)
pattern: well, i linked it up to toast on ravelry, but that’s a bit of a stretch.
mods: i cast on 30 sts. i cast off one stitch and knit flat for the thumbhole, and cast on one more stitch when i re-joined in the round. they are snug on a grown woman, but then again, they were knit for a kid. i’m hoping that this means she can keep them around for several years.
these were made for my cousin! she was around when i was knitting my last pair of toasts, and she just loved them. i thought pink and purple and sparkly would suit her to a T.
thanks to emi for modelling!
today is the last day for voting on my latest choose your own adventure! cast your vote!
i am rounding the corner to finish up the avery cowl… so, next up in the choose your own adventure de-stashing: colinette jitterbug in velvet plum! it does not have particularly generous yardage (at 320 yds), so this will be a small project.
(please forgive the terrible out of focus ancient picture. but it still tells you everything you need to know: pretty, deep purple yarn)
-these gorgeous brooklyntweed green autumn mittens as knit by saccade in a very similar yarn.
part of me says ‘but someone has already made them in almost the same yarn. what’s the point in knitting that?’ and then another part of me says ‘yeah, but look how great they turned out! straight up rip them off, girl!’
–regina cable and bobble modified mittens a la cocoknits
i feel like this pattern would respond really well to being knit up in a semi-solid yarn. ps- i love everything that cocoknits makes. she has a way of making grey look like the best color ever.
–skinner hat by the indomitable knittingschooldropout
pretty hat, by (obvo) one of my favorite designers.
the polls will close in one week. next sunday, around-abouts midnight. let the races begin!
EDIT: skinner hat, you fought the good fight. regina cable and bobble mitts-turned-mittens, you win the good fight! let the knitting commence!
whee! finished. we took a mini road trip this weekend, and on the way back we exited into a town we have stopped at previously, but without realizing that we were taking the other exit. so we drove through the town in order to get to the section we were familiar with and then ultimately back to the highway. but we saw some cool things driving through michigan city, indiana. like this building:
it was opportunely timed, as i had just finished sewing all of the ends in on my second toast.
pattern: a mashup of toast and ships & seaside
yarn: rowan kid classic (leftovers from my rain on bricks cowl) in charcoal, grey, burgundy and natural (maybe 1/3 of a skein-or 50 yds-of the charcoal and natural, and 1/10 of a skein-or 20 yds-of the burgundy and grey)
needles: US size 8 (5mm)
mods: well, a few actually. so i used a modified stripe sequence based on the ships & seaside pattern that i had already knit up using the same yarn. i cut all of the numbers and stripes approximately in half.
i also made them reversible. when the white side is facing down, they are arm warmers. when they grey side is facing down, they are fingerless mitts. i knit several rows flat to create a little gap in the fabric, so that the thumb hole would be unobtrusive and not interrupt their function as arm warmers.
the good news is: i like these quite a bit. i can see them getting a lot of use. i’m not sure how well they will wear, but i doubt i will be wearing them for any manual labor. more likely these will be driving mitts and keeping me warm at work mitts.
i swear i didn’t have my eyes closed in all the pictures. just the ones that were good of the mitts…
the bad news: this didn’t get rid of the kid classic. i still have a little bit left. but it can take another break while i figure out what to use it for…
as you may or may not know, i have been trying to stash bust. i have enough projects mapped out, yarn at the ready, to last me for a little while. i’d like to get through some of those, instead of continually back-burner-ing them.
my rain on bricks was actually a partial stash-buster. between some christmas yarn jake bought me, with the additional yarn purchased with gift certificates, i managed to not spend any money on the yarn. but the cowl didn’t use up all of the skeins, so i couldn’t technically count them as de-stashed. so i came up with another plan.
toast! i modified the stripe sequence to suit a much much smaller tube of knitting, inverted the colors, and knit a couple of rows flat to make a thumbhole for maximum flexibility.
one down, one to go. if this doesn’t use up the majority of the leftover yarn, i might have to make a matching hat!
heart of a nation <– ravelry project page!
pattern: heart of the mesa mittens by graceivy (ravelry, blog)
yarn: elitespun fingering weight in dark charcoal and hot lava
needles: i used metal circular US 1’s (2.25mm) for the body of both mittens, and wooden dpns in US 2’s (2.75mm) for the thumb. and if i’m being completely honest, i could have gone up to 3’s, even. the thumbs are a bit tight. but i’m going to wear them for a little bit first, and if they don’t loosen up, i may pull them out and re-knit.
do you like my nonsensical bird? it’s a candle from pottery barn that i found cruising the sale section once. it was so lovely i couldn’t leave it. but i’ll never burn it, so i just cut the wick off…
i started these last october (eep!). i bought the yarn in toronto, when julie and i went on a massive queen street yarn crawl.
other people have noted this, and i am no exception. this pattern is not very easy to memorize. i love me some colorwork, and i think this is an astoundingly lovely pattern, but there was never a point where i could knit with the chart very close at hand. this isn’t a bad thing, by any stretch, but i do expect to be to divide my attention while knitting (usually tv or conversation), and that was a little less an option with these.
that is why i call him el uno! -elisa of 30 rock
it was love at first sight when i saw the heart of the mesa mittens . i started these in toronto, in october, with some canadian made & bought yarn (elitespun fingering in charcoal and hot lava). the first thumb took me a while to get to (assisted by holiday knitting taking priority). i’m partway into the second mitten now. i had a batch of woolen handwashing and blocking to do, i thought i’d block the first mitten, too.
(left to right, row by row)
1. saroyan/baktus mashup
2. parrot fruit
3. moss mitts
4. lost socks
5. solace
6. harry!
7. showing my geek stripes
8. simon
9. botany of friendship
10. big sky
11. midnight hollow
12. clover honey
13. buttoned garter mitts
14. gothick spires
15. kissing snails
16. kaylie
17. bloomin garden
18. hocus pocus opus spicatum
19. broham jr
20. sleigh rides & snowball fights
21. pigwidgeon
22. papa’s got a brand new hat
23. mondo cozy
24. martha’s shadow mitts
25. maikke’s hat
26. double aspect
27. take two
28. green s(leaves)
29. bits & bobs
30. as the leaves begin to fall
30 finished objects from 2010. down from 32 last year (i can live with that).
i like small projects. i don’t know why. maybe it’s the speed with which they can be finished? maybe it’s because they never physically get too awkwardly large to knit? maybe it’s because i’m afraid that if a large project doesn’t turn out well, i will be proportionately disappointed? i only made five projects this year that required multiple skeins (i’m excluding colorwork in this definition).
i am disappointed to report that none of my knitting related goals got finished this year. i got one pattern ready to publish (duck duck goose), only to find out that my decreases as i wrote them were… problematic at best for other knitters. that still needs some ironing out. the only sweater-like thing i made was big sky, which i liked quite a bit, but i didn’t make it for me, so i didn’t keep it.
my personal goal did get achieved, however! i got my passport (finally! i’ve been dilly-dallying around on that for years!) and got myself out of the country for a few days.
i’m going to maintain last years knitting goals until such a time as they actually come to fruition. by the end of 2010, i hope to publish at least one of my patterns. and i would like to make myself a sweater. one i would actually wear.
i got the idea from fly along (or beatka on ravelry). i love everything she makes, whether its her knits, yarns, or rovings. i think it’s her sense of color.
marhta’s shadow mitts <– ravelry project page
pattern: none! cast on 35 stitches, knit garter until i had a rectangle that stretched around the hand. then i sewed a seam up the cast-on/bind-off edge, leaving a gap for the thumb.
yarn: manos del uruguay wool classica. less than a skein. maybe half a skein?
needles: US size 6 (4 mm)
i’m not usually much for the pooling of multi colored yarns, but i like this… martha is about to embark on a challenging glove project of her own, but i thought she deserved something to keep her hands warm in the mean time!
o tanenbaum, o tanenbaum! i get a little ridiculous about the holidays (in a good, excited, gleeful little girlish way), and most especially about my christmas tree. growing up, there were all kinds of fake trees. parents and grandparents had them due to various allergies, shedding of needles, etc. but i just love a real christmas tree. the smell, the look. anyone with glasses can probably tell you of the joy of sitting in a room with a christmas tree and taking off their glasses to look at it.
buttoned garter mitts
pattern: mashup of ysolda‘s garter mitts and through the loops buttoned mitts
yarn: rowan felted tweed
needles: size US 5’s (3.75 mm)
mods: using ysolda’s garter mitts as the base pattern i cast on and did the first bit as the pattern calls for. but i added a few repeats before doing the thumb, and just tried it on periodically until it stretched across my palm (three extra repeats, i believe). knit the thumb as called for in the pattern.
one garter ridge after the thumb, i added four more stitches to the hand section, to make a little extra length that the cables were going to eat up. from the top edge, it went 4 garter sts, make 1 purl, knit 6, make 1 purl, purl 1, knit 6, make 1 purl, purl 1, knit 6, make 1 purl, marker, and garter down the wrist. i did a 6st cable every 7th row, and did 4 w+t repeats for the front of the hand, then decreased the four sts i’d made at the beginning of the cabled section. knit 3 more garter ridges, and then a row of buttonholes. six buttonholes at six stitches apart: knit 3, *(k2tog, yo), k6* until last 5 sts, (k2tog, yo), knit 3 stitches. 3 more garter ridges, and cast off.
now i want to note right now that i am in no way opposed to kitchener’s stitch. on stockinette. but kitchener’s stitch on garter? it can bite me. i can not handle it (as troy from community would say ‘it’s wrinkling my brain!’). the day i manage to do it truly well, i will throw a party. so i was glad to avoid that with my little buttoned down maneuver… plus, the buttons are pretty dang cute. those are little shell buttons from a mega pack of all sizes of shell buttons, bought at some basic sewing depot. they will continue to show up, as i have upwards of 20 in various sizes waiting around.
in other crafty news:
german paper stars. i place the blame on chronographia for inspiring these. though i don’t have nifty sheet music to get all crafty with. tutorial found here. i have about 8. but what to do with them? make a garland? individual ornaments? place them on gifts as an added personal touch? spray them with adhesive an dump copious amounts of glitter on them? spend hours obsessively making more? so many options…
i love to scrap bust. i used up the partial skein left over from thyme’s sleeves. and i got a christmas present for a friend out of it. jake has been eying them lustily since i cast on for them… and his are kind of in terrible condition. so maybe i should make a new pair for him, too…
i really don’t understand the left thumb gusset in this pattern, so i used the right thumb gusset for both, and mirrored their placement. i noticed this when i made sir janks’ mitts.
also, in order to use up the yarn, i added about five rows to each mitt…
you may notice that emi is wearing estella’s blue lagoon, and jake is wearing the bits and bobs hat and danny boy. it was a handknit thanksgiving up in the upper peninsula.
pattern: princess mitts from the book of yarn
yarn: berroco ultra alpaca, a partial skein leftover from another project, about half a skein.
needles: size 6.
ifandany 