I can't resist...

a wee woodland creature, immortalized on a mitten. I cast on for these shortly before Christmas, managing only a cuff before getting sidetracked. Now that I have some time away, I am endeavouring to knit away and make solid progress before the new year. You know. Because a girl who lives in a low desert valley apparently needs Squirrel Mittens.

Cutting it close...

...in more ways than one. I cast on for these mitts last friday, and basically did little else but knit on them through the weekend - the ball of yarn is all that's left of the skein. Not bad, right?

of course, the finished mittens are much more interesting to look at than a ball of yarn - go check them out here.

Holiday Knitting Revealed

Now that all the presents have been opened, I can show you what I've been up to since just before Thanksgiving....

I've been a Mitten Knittin' machine. Not included in the tall stack above are the ones I knit for my husband (will share those next) - piled one on top of the other, the stack is as tall as a container of one of my favorite juice blends - Cherry Cider, from Trader Joes.

More Mitten details can be found here and here.

Speaking of Mittens...

Mmm cables - mmm mittens - meet Chevalier, by Mari of Made by Myself. I'm knittin' more mittens...these are being knit from Spritely Goods Superwash Merino in Fey - in a limited edition colorway (red maple). There's just enough variegation in the yarn to make things interesting, especially while it's held double. In some ways, the twisting cablework and the variegations in the yarn make me think of dancing flames. One of these days I'm going to have to refocus on my queue - it seems I have several projects that have been lingering on....I counted 8 other projects currently on needles according to my Ravelry Project Page - yikes! The oldest of the unfinished projects appears to have been cast on in September 2007 - and it hasn't made much progress since then since it's a semi-complex piece of lace that requires much counting and paying of attention to the chart...though I'm betting that I finish the lace before I finish the Mitered Square blanket!

Mitten Knittin...

Well, okay, not mittens, but fingerless mitts - regardless, they kept me warm at Rhinebeck :) (yeah I know, I'm really stretching out the Rhinebeck mentions, aren't I?) I rarely wear full mittens, and I seem to be awfully fond of wearing shorts and tee-shirts, only to decide I'm chilled...then I add handknit socks, then depending on where I'm feeling chilled, I'll then add mitts - usually of the fingerless variety so I can still easily carry on doing whatever I'm doing with my fingers...if I'm still cold, then I'll usually give in for a scarf/wrap and/or a sweater. Keep in mind, this is generally in the comfort of my own home, where I seem to refrain from turning on the heat for as long as possible so I can get the most use out of my handknits...a girl has to resort to certain strange behaviors sometimes, I'm afraid.

Anyhow, additional photos are over here, as usual.

Slipped and Twisted

Round 1 of test knitting was completed just in time for my Eastern Seaboard Tour. I love how the pattern breaks up the little bits of color on this yarn in the small cable section...

The bigger cables aren't half bad either...see?

Wondering what I made? You can see the finished object details here.

The yarn was a pleasure to work with - with regular addi's I had no issue - though with my lace needles I'd occasionally split the yarn. For hand, the yarn is wonderfully soft, and it seems to wear quite nicely - I'm thinking I'll likely add this as a base, I just need to find space in the house to put it...and decide on a name :)

Baring my Guts

Or my Mitten's Guts anyhow. I love how floats look, don't you? Nice neat floats on fair isle projects always make me happy.

Interested in finding out more? The mittens are done, and all the details are over yonder on the Finished Objects blog.

And here is why Row Gauge Matters...

Well, I'm not yet done with my mittens...but I could have been!

Aren't they looking lovely? The fern motif shaped up nicely - the little color additions on the stem are little bits of yarn from other mittens in the mitten-along. I think it makes them even more special :)

So the question is...are you noticing anything slightly odd by any chance? All I have to say to explain myself is that I was just having a lovely time knitting along, following the chart, while listening to/watching TV (anyone else get sucked into Wipeout?) Next thing I knew it, the mittens were getting kinda tangled each time I flipped em over to knit the other side. Hmm... that's odd - that usually happens when I work on knitting sleeves...or long socks...

uh, yeah. it is fair to say we have a problem. No amount of blocking or felting is going to shorten these babys up. I noticed that my Vs are rather upright and long...rather than being short and squat. I think this is what is to blame for my ridiculous mitten length...or that's as far as my brain can figure it out.


If we look at the interesting side of the mittens, you can see approximately where my index finger ends. I'm trying now to figure out what the best path forward is - seeing as it's not quite at the beginning of that part of the motif, I wasn't sure if I should rip that entire "frond" back or how best to proceed. As it is, if I rip it completely out, I think I'm going to have to drop back some stitches (and pick them back up again) to adjust the colorwork on the 2 lower fronds...either that or I'm going to be doomed to rip clear all the way back to just above the snails. If that happens, I think I might cry. Then again, I've been really enjoying the knitting, so knitting it twice may not be that bad ;) This would be one of the downfalls of knitting your mittens (or socks or sleeves both at the same time ;) ) The good thing with the shetland wool is I don' t think it's going to be too traumatic to rip back - the wool is rather grippy, so I would expect that it will leave the happy little active stitches sticking straight up waiting to slide back onto the needles!

We have Snails.

I've cruised on past the snails on the mittens and am working my way up the fern motif. Things are going relatively speedily and I'm still working on making my gauge behave when it comes to carrying the yarn across long stretches and then having to knit with it on the first or second stitch on the other side of the mitten (we'll see how successful I am when I'm finished). When looking at the palm of the mitten it appears I have fairly even gauge/tension between hands (I make this statement because both colors appear to show up fairly evenly on the 1x1 stripes). Tonight, I curl up with the mittens while watching the Hell's Kitchen finale...or whatever else I can find on TV...or maybe I'll watch something on the computer. Either way, I'm going to get a little knitting done :)

In other news, the Shop has several new additions - not so much of my own personal dyework and fiberwork (I'm woefully behind and the 110+ degree days aren't really conducive to thinking about blending fibers). Orders I placed during or after TNNA have started to make their appearances at my door - there's yarn and woolwash and LOTS of patterns :)

4th of July Mitten Launch (we must be crazy)

For those readers in the US, I hope you all had a fantastic 4th of July weekend. I sure did - even though it was probably hot enough to braise a roast in my car, several of us decided to get together and play with wool.

It was all Steve's Idea...

here's all the lovely yarn (except for Illanna's - since she was joining us virtually from far far away) about 5 minutes before the designated start time of High Noon on the 4th of July....

I suspect a great number of folks who saw us at various establishments this weekend all thought we were crazy....ah well, I'm enjoying the knitting....and I'm discovering that my right hand is slightly dominant with Fair Isle knitting - but it's probably a lot more pronounced in large stretches of colorwork (vs plain on striping). I'll explain more about that some other time. Steve & Kiki have semi-time-lapse photos on their blog of the mitten progress over the weekend....

Unfortunately, with today being Monday, I suspect the mitten progress may be greatly slowed...but you never know :)

the Long and Short of it.

Elbow length cabled gloves, knit by me - details over here - not too many details because I made them up as I went along and failed to take notes.

Wrist length mitts, knit by Kiki - out of Spritely Goods Sidhe yarn in the Garnet colorway - Kiki had heard me talking about how my hands get cold and work less properly when I get stuck on the computer for long periods of time and she took pity on me by gifting me those lovely mitts. I adore how they pooled - they look really neat when they are on too with the expansion of the 1x1 ribbing and the way the colors stack up in the fabric - sadly I had to take these photos of the mitts on the table since I had no helper to assist with the photography.

I thought both projects were fitting with the current Project Spectrum element of Fire - partially due to the color, but the cables on the long gloves also remind me of the licking flames of a large fire.

In other fiery news, the Firestarters were off to an exceptional start, and I turned the heels and finished the heel flaps yesterday - sadly, I suspect they are going to the Frogpond to be ripped and redone on US0s. I'll take photos so I can show you the glorious colorway though - I'm really enjoying the knit, so I don't think I'll mind re-doing it (at least not too much anyhow). Stay tuned :)