A Gauge Swatch?

I want to knit my husband another hat and I wanted to use this pattern, which is from the Komi Region in Russia. But I would knit it in muted colors: blue and charcoal. So instead of making a big old gauge swatch, I started to make a mitten. I have the same yarn in red and white. Then I started to realise that I never wear mittens, even though I love knitting them. I do wear my fingerless gloves. So I thought I would try some "fingerless?" mittens. The yarn is great: Tiur, Dale of Norway. I got it from my 93 year old grandmother who can no longer knit :-( But I am hoping to make her proud and knit some good stuff with it.

Spring Has Sprung

Hermit Thush and Mockingbird by Sharon

Aren't they great?

Shrinky Dink

I have been de-stashing and this bag was a great project to rid my self of many yards of yarn. I bought the yarn at the Maryland Sheep and Wool and I dyed it with cochineal. Then I attempted to knit myself a vest and ended up frogging that. Then I took half of the dyed yarn and put it in an iron bath and the yarn came out a purple. I knit this bag in four days! I started at the base and holding two strands of the purple I knitted until I got partway up the side. Then I switched to one strand of pink and the other purple. Then I finished with two strands of pink. I am showing before felting and after felting here. Now I need a very big button. Does anyone out there have one? If so please bring it to the S&B!

Done, again

Here's another pair of mittens. Simma loved my Latvians and requested a pair. I still had some alpaca yarn left over from a hat that I had made her a year ago. She had bought the yarn in Australia when she was there Jan07:
I used other yarns from my stash, so it was very satisfying to use that up and not buy anything. I had to rip these back several times because I kept loosing track of when I should change colors and also where to place the thumb. (those pesky thumbs!) But I am happy with how they came out. Very soft!

Gimme an N. . .O. . .R. . .O

NORO sock yarn! What's it good for? Absolutely nothing! N! O! R! O!

Well, ok, I exaggerate. The new Noro sock yarn is not good for socks, I'm guessing. I knit a small swatch and found the fabric too floppy and shapeless (it's single ply) and I worry it might be too scratchy. I've also read that it tends to bias when knit in the round (also because it's single ply).

So I used it to make another one of my reversible scarves. This is very narrow -- maybe only 4" wide -- and very long. Meant to wrap around the neck a few times and then you can tie it in a bow.





The pattern is a variation of the Indian pillar stitch. Kind of labor-intensive to make but also fun and, yes, reversible. This baby is something like 8 feet long and there's still plenty of yarn left. I'd say thumbs down for socks but thumbs up for a project requiring lace-weight yarn. The color shifts are really cool.

Done and Done

Finished. Very happy with these and I'd like to start another pair soon. Or is it vest time? Sadly (happily?) the weather is nearly too nice to wear them, though they were welcome on the ride in this morning. Now where is that graph paper...

Amazing Stupidity, Amazing Brilliance

I am DONE!!! I am very happy with these mittens. My daughter wants them- she's not getting them:-) They are too special to me. (I will make her another pair.) I love the yarn. I am totally sold on Jamieson's Spindrift. I even bought (at great expense) the shade card.

Ok, so here's a funny story. I really wish I had taken a picture of this. I was about three rows from being done with the second mitten. These are three short rows because it was the thumb. Maybe ten minutes from being done, when I finally noticed that I had been knitting my second mitten with the thumb in the same place as the first mitten. In other words, I had knitted two right hands! How stupid is that?! Especially since I had the other mitten with me the whole time and was using it to compare the patterns. I could not believe how stupid that was. So I had all these complicated plans about removing the thumb and snipping (ha!) my knitting and grafting the thumb back in. But Wendy (and this is where the brilliance comes in) said that all I had to do was rip back the decreases at the top of the mitten and shift the whole thing a quarter turn, and then re-knit the top of the mitten. Saved!! So I did that and now all is well. You can see in the mitten on the right how the jog where the new rows start is now in the palm instead of at the side. But who cares? (I do a little bit, but not enough...)