Back

So, awhile back, my life went nuts. My work life, my real life is fine. Not bad, just busy to the point of not remembering to use the restroom all day. Then my phone went into decline (failing battery) and then died. It was kind of a drag and killed blogging for me.
Any how, new staff, new budget year and new phone.
I've been doing lots of knitting - lots of it kind of dull. I made some mittens for the annual horse barn event:

And I started Pipet - twice. First time was with Galileo which was lovely but the gauge was off and then I pulled out the Green Mtn Spinnery tunic I'd stalled out in Cotlin to use for it. Some I'll learn that stalling out means I hate it
I also made some socks for a coworker who retired, but I have all this awesome yarn I have to use. Thinking of doing Rosa Rugosa in the Galileo with long sleeves. The bamboo makes it wearable next to the skin.

Mittens!

Sent from my iPodMy annual charity donation for my coworker ...

Pink and black

Happy new year! I'm working on a lining for these - reusing some silk and alpaca from a scarf I made that just didn't work and the rest of the pink neck warmer.

Something fun for fall

We made these over the weekend - awesome.  The little one also played soccer, his last regular season games and did a nice job.  That could be somewhat to do with his new found interest in hockey.  We also went to a Gladiators game:

where I worked on Sara's mittens:

You might wonder ...

What is that?



It a scarf with attached mittens, made in Cadena. I wish lived up north because I would love a sweater out of this stuff. I'm going to line the mittens with Comfy inner mitts.
And this?



Thunder Horn, of course. He's supposed to look stern. I think the artist succeeded, myself.

More lined mittens

Sorry it's been so long - I finally finished my Glimmer sweater and I love it - the closure ended up being quite the aftermarket job, but it works - now I have to get someone to take pictures. Honestly, I'm shocked my modular do-the-math-as-you-go approach worked. Way to go 3rd grade math skills.
In the meantime, more lined mittens!






And I'm making a mitten scarf - I'm also going to line those. I'll get a snap tomorrow. Here's another picture I liked.

Knitting at practice

And listening to Jane Eyre. How bad can life be? I really like these mittens. Entrelac is fun but just as you get sick of it, you're done and move on to straight knitting. The lining will keep the embroidery from snagging. They're a labor of love. I think I'll write this one up with some mix and match colorways - one idea is a fawn grey with cherry branches and pale pink lining ....

Happy Easter

Spouse has had a truly awful flu all weekend (sad) but Easter was nice.
Mittens in progress




Oh and we had turkeys this morning

Yet more mittens

Another experiment - lined entrelac. Entrelac is way fun with Chroma.

Mittens done

I think next I want to do a lined pair of entrelac mittens. I'll block these tonight.

Aloft

It's so soft and lovely - yikes, the colors are pretty close to what you see here (mmm, yummy office floor).  I'm thinking these will make an awesome Dr. Who type scarf, I just need to find an appropriately artsy/vision impaired recipient.  I also got some Blackberry Comfy fingering to make a hat/lined mitten set with . . . .



In other news, I've finished the second sleeve of the GMS windowpanes pullover, now I'm starting on the body.  That's a lot of corrugated ribbing in small yarn, that is.  Kept me busy at soccer practice anyhow.  I'll take a picture over the weekend.

I'm going to be at a work conference at the end of the month, lots of watching  so I'm thinking that would be a good time to make the world's loudest er, prettiest, I mean, scarf.

Oh, and I also forgot, I have a request for my lined mitten pattern - from a monk.  So I think that's a first for me, so that's sort of neat.  I'll have to size that pattern up for a guy's hand. 

Mittens done

Now on to Chroma.
Hopefully she'll like the colors.  The first picture isn't a great picture, but it does show you the structure.  I just wet blocked them as normal (you can't say that Bartlett softens, but it does get more even and the stitches look more even) and then dried them by a fire.  Bartlett is hardcore stuff - unlike Knitpicks which is prettier but not nearly so durable.  Short of having bleach dumped on them or getting lost in a fire, it's safe to say these puppies should outlast the next 5 or 6 presidential administrations.

Tournament

Soccer, all weekend.
But I'm almost done with moms mittens:



And we went to brunch.

Lined mittens

This using up stuff - it feels good. Here are leftovers from Elsie's gloves and from the Detroit Lions hat:

Another day off

In a city with 11 snowplows for a metro area of 4 million, you're gonna lose a couple days of work and school.
This Dec. the small one lost one of his dragon mittens so I made another fast pair the night before the day of the storm:










They took a couple hours to make, and they're not lovely, but they work.
I'm also finishing a pair of socks for him:



Have I mentioned that mine 9 year old son and I have the same size feet?

New Pattern available - DIY Mittens

So, today a coworker asked for my help with something she's knitting. It's a blouse with a fitted top and a Rowan kidsilk haze (aka kidsilk crack if you've ever felt it, so lovely) sort of skirt - it's going to be lovely, but she wasn't happy with how the top part rolled, was worried it would mess up the drape of the lighter skirt part. I told her to rip up the cast on edge and knit it back down in 2 rows of seed stitch so it would be flat. Long story short, I spent some time showing her how to insert the life line, how to undo a cast on and tink back. While this was all going on, she asked about the soccer mom mittens I've been working on. So, for Amy, I've worked up a DIY mitten pattern - includes sizes kids medium, women's small and medium large and a men's medium. But the graph is blank - for 99 cents you can print it off over and over and design your own mittens in as many or as few colors as you like. Got a zillion little balls of space dyed sock yarn (the craze of 2005-2008?) but not enough desire for that many socks, well, now you can use it up in a fun way.
Available here and on Ravelry, just 99 cents and I'll make up some season graphs to use with it too. Still working on the Olympian, supposed to be in the 50's here this weekend - whoo hoo!

Soccer mittens

These are really basic, so you don't have to look while you knit, which enhances watching kids playing soccer. These are coming out pretty well, I think. With the space dyed yarn, simple can really be nice. Because they're not double stranded, they're coming out pretty small - they fit me, but I have freakishly small hands (Austin Powers would be afraid of me).

The peacock is on hold, I'm waiting on beads. Indy loves anything that hangs off the table.

See that fat white belly he has??? It's so white and soft and fuzzy, I expect a baby penguin to poke it's head out any time now.

Some stuff

Well, it's been a crazy week. Here are the soccer mittens - some of the food colored silk and wool and palette. Watching U8 soccer seems to be my single unalloyed pleasure these days. I'm going to use a design out of The Mitten Book, one of my all time favorites.

And believe it or not, I'm more than half done with skein 3 of 4 of the black peacock. In progress pictures of these things don't look nearly as interesting as I find them. Percy's sweater kind of had a stall out when I started a sleeve and didn't like the decrease intervals, so I have to redo that.

I thought I had more to say, maybe I'll remember over night.

A couple things that actually show progress

So I have one pattern on Ravelry without a demo of it, I'm fixing that:
Knitpicks Gloss in a lovely purple they're not making anymore and Imagination in Looking Glass. These two make a very nice fabric for mittens, soft and with a lovely silky hand.
And for my next project, SACKBOY from Little Big Planet. Pattern is here, in case you have fans around the house.

So slow

Okay, things were crazy and of course when you think "well, that has to be it" things go more off the rails.
I'm still, very slowly, putting together the peacock pattern. And the wedding stole, which right now looks like a very large, very elaborate dicky, is coming along. But slow.
So I decided to make a pair of mittens. I'm finally going to knit up a pair of the daisy mittens. Here's the start. I still mean to go back and design some gryphon mittens, I just don't have it together enough to find my way out of a paper bag these days.