Things That Have Entertained Me in the Last Week or So

1. A red colorwork hat, as usual, made up as I went along.


2. Mittens- these completely used up the gray and the red. I'm starting to feel like my stash is stabilizing rather than burgeoning out of control.


3. Two red hats:

I like them so much that I'm keeping one- finally, I'll have a hat that doesn't clash violently with my red winter coat!

4. My car no longer has a giant hole rusted through the exhaust, and therefore passed inspection (the second time).

5. The new cat (the lamp-shaped one). This was a gift from my sister Kate. The real cats thought it was very interesting.


6. Outstanding chocolate cake, warmed for 15 seconds in the microwave, just until the frosting starts to melt, and accompanied by a tall glass of cold milk. (Thanks, Mom!)

7. Daffodils! Blooming in my front yard! Spring doesn't actually feel like it's put in an appearance yet, but at least it's sending advance scouts.

Where Was I?

Oh, yes, knitting Thorpe hats. The last couple of weeks have been exceedingly busy on the employment front (in a good way, I hasten to add, but it has kept me hopping). And in the evenings I have come home to sink into the couch with a cat and a pile of yarn, and very little inclination to stare into a computer, hence the lack of blogging.

However, there are crafting highlights- when I left you, I thought I felt another Thorpe hat coming on, and so I did:


The crucial breakthrough was remembering that I could substitute doubled worsted weight for bulky yarn. Also that pairing a strand of white and another color gives one that attractive tweedy effect.

After that, my non-work involved brain cells dwindled to the point where a garter stitch scarf seemed like a good idea::


I'd been wanting to try a short-row scarf for a while, and it seemed like a fun way to jazz up some of my odd partial skeins of bulky weight. Wait, you're thinking. Wasn't I just saying I didn't have enough bulky weight? Well. This is a bulky weight bouclé, and while it's very soft and appealing, the nubbly texture tends to swallow up shaping or even stripes. So I've been doing mostly either plain hats or berets, or scarves with it. I quite like the slanted effect- I may well do another one.

And last but not least, I've returned to colorwork. I was having withdrawal symptoms. You'll understand, I'm sure. Just a little hat to take the edge off. (The fact that I cast on another colorwork hat straight after it shows that it might not have taken the edge off enough.)


And lest you think that I haven't moved from the couch...we have been trying to get our feet in shape for the summer walking season. Two weeks ago we went nine miles (and got rather wet, due to a sudden shower), last week was a more modest six miles for lack of time, and today we went thirteen miles on the local bike path. It's a lovely path, leading out through woods and fields. There are some gorgeous wetlands, and for quite a distance it follows the Nashua River.


Despite the warmer weather, you have to look quite closely for signs of spring. Most of the trees are still bare, and the woods are still lying quiescent. But there are small signs appearing; an occasional bush with a hint of green, reeds and water plants in the low-lying areas. And at home there are flowering bushes starting to bud, my forsythia has just barely started to bloom and the rhubarb is uncrumpling its first leaves. Spring. Coming to a neighborhood near me. Real Soon Now.

Holiday Knitting, or How To Tell When A Knitter Has Lost It

First off, I have to say to Lisa- I'm sorry. I totally lied about how far along I was with the holiday knitting. If it's any consolation, I was lying to myself too.

See, this week I've been making Christmas lists, searching out things I've made or found earlier in the year, and noting down the things I plan to shop for. And then I figured that I really should add in all the knitted things on the list, which I totally didn't think I really needed to do, because hey, I've had Christmas knitting on the brain for ages, all except the oh, one or two..ah, eight or ten, ideas I had in September and October and thought would be cool to add to the list. You know, since I was so far ahead and had all this extra time.

And then I started jotting things down and noticed...oops, I have the yarn for that but haven't actually cast it on yet, and wait a minute...surely I was going to knit something for this friend at work? and the next thing you know... well, take a look:
total planned: 18
complete: 8
can be let slip post holiday: 3
must complete by 12/25: 7

In my own defense, there were a few things I *knew* wouldn't be Christmas knitting- the sweater I'm making from all of that blue sport-weight yarn that I dyed being the best example. But still... once again, my ambition appears to be getting the best of me!

It's also perfectly clear that while I will easily be able to make my 100 projects for the year, I really need to abandon all those quick hats and mittens (unless I can somehow sub them in for more time consuming ideas that were on the list...) and work exclusively on holiday projects if I'm going to have a hope of completing (most of) what I have planned.

To that end, I have put nose to knitting needles and completed a sweater, destined for one of my small nephews:


However, my newfound resolution did not stop me from going down to hang out with some of the folks from my local knitting group who were having a charity knit-a-thon.
I finished another hat from the new yarn I got last week, and unloaded on them some of my accumulated charity knitting. Lynne has posted some photos of us knitting away.

After cleverly bringing my camera along so I could take an FO shot of the new beret, I discovered that the camera's memory card was still in my computer. So Cindy kindly loaned me her camera and modeled the hat for me:


Now I'm working on the next thing. Hampered somewhat by having misplaced the notebook where I cleverly wrote down some vital information about people's sizes. On the plus side the search turned up a knitting book I misplaced a couple of months ago, and have been looking for on and off for weeks. Of course now that I've found it, I don't recall exactly why I was looking for it. I did find the sweater pattern I intended to use for the other nephew...after reflecting long and hard about the pattern booklet, and how much I liked it, and how many sweaters I've knit from it, and how it should be a cinch to find because I had just....knit the green Aran out of the same book, and that's why it's not on the shelf, the Aran's still not done. Oh.

So, I'm not completely whacked (yet) because I still realize that the remaining list is still on the ambitious side, and I've earmarked some things that if they're late (which I hate but never mind) won't be a crisis. But still. Wouldn't it be nice if they were all done in time? Just imagine. I'll be over here knitting obsessively....

Achievements

So, last night as I was headed to karate practice, I had a call from my husband. "I can't find Cookie," he said. "I'm afraid he's gotten out."

Well, that was a matter for considerable concern- he's an indoor cat and inclined to be nervous about new things. If he'd managed to go rushing through an open door before he registered it was new and strange, he'd probably panic. So I turned around and headed home. But before I started an outdoor search, I wanted to do a thorough check inside first, even though my husband had already turned the place upside down a couple of times. Because Cookie is good at hiding. He has been getting into places you'd swear were impossible. And he has this tendency to wander around staring penetratingly at places he finds interesting until he figures out how to get there.

For example, yesterday morning, he found his way to the top of one of the tall bookcases in the living room:


Doesn't he look pleased with himself?


So, after an exhaustive search, we finally located him in one of these places...atop the other tall bookcase in the living room. The one we would have sworn he couldn't get into, because there is a rim that goes around the edge with only a few inches gap between it and the ceiling. The rim which, it turns out, conceals the top of the bookcase from the ground, making it a perfect hiding place for a cat.

I know how he did it- he launched himself from the top of the other bookcase above, and threaded the gap at the side, which is a bit wider than the one in front. Of course, once he'd done that, he had no idea how to get himself down. Straight down to the floor is nearly seven feet- that's enough to make even a cat as athletic as Cookie think twice, or three times or four. We stood there and watched him get one paw over the edge, look down and then retreat, several times.

It finally took a chair, a step stool, one human pushing and the other pulling to extricate him from his predicament. Once he was down, though, he didn't seem at all discommoded. Just rather dusty and in need of a thorough wash.

In other news, I wrote out a plan for the decreases on the colorwork mittens yesterday. I'd actually stopped knitting on them for a day because I was starting to have the sinking feeling I was going to run out of yarn. Fortunately, I remembered that my mother had some of the same gray, and I've asked her to hang onto it for a few days, in case I need it to finish these. So these are moving again.



And last but not least, having found myself home early last night, I turned to thinking about various projects in process, and decided to knock one off the list. Last year, I started to build a kayak cart. After trying it out, I found that it needed cross-bracing (which I'd known, but hadn't taken the time to do), and also that it needed to be reduced in height, as the center of gravity was too high, and it wasn't very stable. So last night I went down into the wood shop, took it apart, lowered the height and added cross-bracing.

So here it is, that rare creature- a carpentry FO!

In Case It Escaped Your Notice

I've kind of fallen down on the blogging front lately. Partly it's that I haven't had FOs to show off. And the other reason is the same issue that's caused the lack of FOs- I've had a serious attack of books. I should have known this was coming- I almost stopped reading altogether for two months in February and March, between cat care and the aftermath. But I picked back up to something closer to a normal reading level in April, so I figured that was it. Um, not so much. I've read 23 books since the beginning of May. I'm not sure the obsession has passed yet, though I did read only one over the weekend, so I do seem to be slowing down. (I love to read, but 7-10 books a month is more normal for me.) Maybe that's why I dreamt the other morning that I had a whole pile of finished knitted projects that I had forgotten about and I was writing a blog entry about them when I woke up. Well, there *isn't* a whole pile, but I do have these socks, which got knit on the road the last couple of weeks:


I really need to try and get a better photo of these in daylight- the colors are actually highly saturated greens and blues and turquoise, with hints of fluorescent green. The yarn was so pretty I kept finding myself knitting more slowly so they wouldn't be over so soon. I've misplaced the ball band, but it's a yarn I've looked at in the store a number of times and not bought because it comes in short skeins- with my large feet, I had to do the toes and heels in a contrast color to be sure of having enough yarn.

It hasn't helped my crafting output that the weather has been gorgeous. The pool is moving along (which is to say, it's leaking only about as much as usual), and the wildflower bed has put out a few blossoms. Mainly clover, but hey, it's wild and a flower, right? The less-than-ten-mile hike Memorial Day weekend was up in Hanover, NH. Hanover's a pretty town, made even more attractive by having the downtown inextricably entangled with the Dartmouth college campus.

We took a short hike up onto a section of the Appalachian trail, which goes right through Hanover. And then we walked out to lovely Pine Park, which runs along the back side of the golf course and out along the shore of the Connecticut River.

It was hot and sticky, and the whole area was overlain by thick haze. My husband swore it smelled smoky. I didn't believe him, but I should have- when I got home I found out the haze was smoke from the Quebec wildfires, which blanketed the region that Monday.

This past weekend we went down to Newport, RI to walk and tour some of the mansions for which the area is rightly famous. And forgot the camera. Not that they allow photos inside the mansions anyway. And outdoors it was hazy or downright foggy most of the day. Wherever we went, we could hear the foghorns calling on the coast. The overcast was actually kind of welcome- it was unbelievably sticky, if the sun had been out as well it would have been too hot to walk. As it was, I spend most of the day sodden with sweat. I indulged in a caramel sundae with chocolate brownie ice cream at the end of it. Oh, and I finished a hat.



I really need to do a few more hats- I've got a lot of yarn that's well suited to them, and not so good for other projects. Or I could cast on a baby project- I'm going to be an aunt again in the fall, courtesy of my sister-in-law and her husband. So, what am I knitting now?

More socks.

No, I don't understand it either. If you figure it out, please, let me know.

Any Random Tuesday

But! This is no random Tuesday. Because, lo, there was vacation time, and the year being busy, the vacation time it was not used. And HR spake unto the knitter and said, 'this vacation time, it must be used, or it will lost forever in the mists of time'. And the knitter said, 'woe! for the job is never done, so when may I take the vacation time?' And then the maintenance manager said, 'the plant must be closed and the boiler shut down, that maintenance and safety inspections may be performed upon it'. And the knitter said, 'extreme woe! for this means my office shall not have heat', and the knitter spake unto her boss and said, 'this week, I shall take my vacation'. And though his lamentations were many, she was firm.

And therefore, I am at home, where the wind is blowing so hard the furnace has been running all day and we still haven't got the temperature up to the thermostat setting. Which leads me to wonder if there isn't some cosmic rule that I have to freeze this week. Despite this, I am reveling in having unscheduled time off, when I am neither traveling, nor grossly overcommitted to some project or other.

So- now for some random:
1. My charming and talented sister (about whom I really need to talk more and show off some of her work) has a business designing and making jewelry as well as handmade soaps and herbal lotions. Extremely nice stuff, and her wonderfully mild soap is the only thing standing between me itching to death while drowning in gallons of lotion this time of year (that would be, dry-skin season). She's experiencing some veterinary-bill-related cash flow issues at the moment, and running a sale at her Esty shop to address the situation.

2. Speaking of my sister Kate, she was the recipient of the single most troublesome knitted article for Christmas this year. Way back in May, I started a pair of mitts for her:

These started out with the basic pattern of the mitts I made her last year (based on Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts). I chose some Trekking sock yarn left from the socks she got last year. I took the needle size down to 1 and increased the number of stitches. Then I decided to do the palm in reverse stockinette, added the cable pattern from the Austrian cabled socks in Interweave's best socks collection and did something funky I'd rather not discuss with the thumb increases. The result...wasn't successful. I didn't like the reverse stockinette, and the cable pattern, which would probably be fine in a heavier weight yarn, was driving me straight round the bend in fingering weight. I had started it as travel knitting (!), decided it was too fussy, and then put it into an extended time-out during which I optimistically thought, 'it'll be fine when I get it home and can work on it in good light'.

Um, not so much. So with Christmas looming on the calendar, I finally bit the bullet, ripped it back to the cuff and changed to a colorwork pattern. Which went much more quickly, and I finished days before the holiday.


3. Finishing the danged mitts was a very good thing, because I needed the size 1 needles the mitts were on, to make socks for my father. Now, normally it takes me two weeks to make a pair of socks for myself. Why I thought I could finish a pair of socks for my dad in a week is...more unrealistic optimism. But, I came pretty close. My family celebration was slated for Boxing Day this year, giving me an extra day of knitting time. And the sock yarn was Patons Kroy Sock which, when I swatched it, I found that it was somewhat heavier than the sock yarns I was accustomed to. Despite the larger size, I only needed 96 stitches around in the Kroy. So I chose a simple pattern (Twin Rib from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks) and started knitting determinedly. And knit, and knit, and knit. I hardly did anything else all week (except, y'know work, eat, sleep and stuff).(To be strictly fair, I used only the *stitch pattern* from the book, since the Schurch pattern calls for top down construction with a heel flap and a 1x1 ribbed cuff, whereas I did toe-up with a short-row heel and 3x3 ribbed cuff.)

And I would have made it, had I not run out of yarn. I came up 3/4" short. Argh. So, I pulled some from the first sock to finish the second, and then ripped back the first cuff and reknit that to the same cuff length. Result- I finished the socks and wove in ends while we opened gifts and was able to send the pair home with my dad. So, it was very close, but not quite a win. (Pitching the socks into a gift bag standing ready under the tree as the guests ring the doorbell would have counted. This was a near-miss.)

4. And the indirect reason my (totally reasonable and non-insane) Christmas knitting plan was derailed was an extraneous sweater (about which more anon, as this post is getting rather long).

5. Woats thinks this whole 'people all the time' vacation thing is marvelous. As far as she's concerned, this is all designed to provide her with continuous lap. I haven't discouraged this- not only is it extremely cute, it's also warm.


And now I shall confound the cat's expectations by going to the grocery store, and then come home and build a fire, and quite likely make hot chocolate. I wonder how long it would take to knit long johns?

Out of Excuses

Yesterday I was on the road, and considering the amount of time I spent sitting, there was no reason for me to keep falling asleep today--but when I finally got enough caffeine into my system to sustain consciousness for awhile, I decided there was going to be no more pussyfooting around. If I got nothing else done today, that colorwork sweater was going to be finished.

Well, I didn't get much else done, but:


I think that in the end, I made the placket neck more complicated than it needed to be. I did go with both an inner and outer facing. The result is thicker than I liked, but will allow the sweater to be worn partially unzipped without exposing the zipper or steeked edges. It also involved at various points having different sections of the facing and neck on three different needles, as well as a needle with sewing thread. As techniques go, it was neither pretty nor clever- but it did give me more or less the result I was aiming for.

Here's a view of the neck finishing.


Don't ask about the novel- I've been away from the computer almost all weekend. My husband and I spent a lot of our long car trip talking about it, but mostly it was fairly silly. I don't think his suggestion of a chase scene on riding lawnmowers is going to make it into this (or any) draft. The bad guys' secret lair on a submarine may have potential, however.

Fall Down, Get Up

I did promise a picture.

Autumn colors for my friends in other places.

Yeah, about that colorwork sweater. It is steeked. I painstakingly measured the sleeves against the body four or five times, then marked the depth. Checked the second sleeve a couple of times for good measure. So. Why, I ask you, when I started sewing the sleeves on, did I come up with the steeks an inch too deep? It is a profound mystery. One of the few un-fixable errors in knitting, and I went and did it. I put the sweater back in the knitting basket and we stared at one another for most of last week. At the end of the week, I pulled the sweater back out and wonder of wonders-- the steeks were still too deep. Drat. I'd hoped it would see reason. As in, "I measured you four times, you can't be wrong!".

Fortunately while the error cannot be *fixed* it can be worked around. I ripped back the last pattern band on the sleeves and reknit them with extra increases so the sleeve width at the end now matches the steeks. Then I sewed it all together and had my husband try it on. I'm now really glad that I made the sleeves wider, because it's still just a tad tight. Nothing that can't be resolved in blocking, I think. Still, I'm puzzled. I know the EZ percentages are a guideline, but after the first sweater I made using these I increased the sleeve width--and the sleeves are still tighter than I'd have liked. This is something I'll clearly have to do some additional work on the next time I knit a sweater using percentages. Then further progress was temporarily stymied by feline assistance. Isn't that too cute to move?


However, onward. I extracted the sweater from under the cat, and started the neck. Stopped and wove in all the ends (because I hate finishing the neck, getting all excited about being done, and then realizing I have two hours of weaving ends still ahead of me).

I got a third of the way around the neck with a vague sense that there was something not right. And then I remembered that the last crew neck sweater I made, I had to make sure I had a stretchy seam to ensure that the neckline wasn't too tight. And I was being very careful of that, because I'd cast off edges and picked up instead of leaving live stitches. This was to try and combat the tendency of my husband's sweaters to stretch out at the neck. (It may have worked a bit too well.) So...I unsewed the start of the neck, contemplated schemes for introducing a bit more stretch, but not too much, firmly returned the colorwork sweater to the basket for the evening (it was almost 11, I wasn't going to accomplish anything more on it that day), and picked up a green Aran sweater sleeve.

The green Aran sweater still loves me.

The Yarn Is Always Greener

or, in Search of a Portable Project.

So, I haven't fallen out of love with the colorwork sweater, but progress has slowed down quite a bit since it got too big to carry around. Let's face it, anything with four balls of yarn attached to it is going to be awkward in the carrying-around department anyway, and only things like long car trips when a giant sized project bag isn't too much of a hassle make it possible at all. (Being just a teensy bit obsessive doesn't hurt either.) Since I finished the body and started on the sleeves, it's only gotten worse. (I'm going to pause here, and let you admire it- sweaters in progress don't always make for interesting photos, but I never get tired of this sweater!)


I know what you're thinking. "But a sleeve! Everyone knows a sleeve is a portable project! Elizabeth Zimmerman said so." Well. That would be true if I'd, say, copied down a sheet with all the patterns I chose for the sweater. (I've done it as a sampler- each band has a different pattern, and no two are alike.) Since I'm too lazy to do that- and also, it introduces another potential source of error- instead I'm just referring back to the sweater body to see which pattern comes next. And carrying around a completed sweater body, *plus* a sleeve with four balls of yarn attached- well, I think even EZ would have admitted it's a little awkward.

So I needed another portable project. Now, I could have grabbed the fine gauge bamboo sweater (which I occasionally do for variety). I don't think I've actually shown that one yet because giant rectangles are so widely known for being visually interesting. But I suppose now is as good a time as any:



Now, while the bamboo sweater is just the thing for when I need miles of mindless knitting/no brain required? There are times I find it just a bit boring. Plus, the point where I realized there was no chance I'd get it done in time to wear it this summer made it seem a bit less urgent. I'm thinking that after the Christmas knitting rush, when I'm up to my tailbone in snow, I'll be seized with a violent urge to knit light summery things. (It's a theory, anyway.)

But, I still needed a portable project. Socks are my usual carrying-around thing, but I've had socks on the needles continuously most of the year, and felt like a change. And (thanks to multiple designs rejected for the colorwork sweater), I had nearly a sweaters-worth of green wool hanging out without a plan. And EZ *did* say that a sleeve makes for a good portable project. So I spent one morning sitting on the floor of the sewing room surrounded by patterns, and finally selected one from a booklet I inherited from my grandmother. I think she liked it- she made at least two sweaters from the book that I know of (I still own one), though not to my knowledge the one I'm knitting now.


And I see why she liked these. In a continuation of the confluence of weirdly convenient happenings from last week, this sweater knit perfectly in gauge on the needles the pattern called for. I was so suspicious of this, I even washed my swatch (something I'm not always religious about), but it was real. My preference tends to be for densely knitted fabric, and this isn't, but once I got a couple of inches on the needles, I found the pattern draws the piece up into an air-trapping mass of poofy cables- I think it's going to be light as well as warm.

Now my only problem is- I keep knitting on it when I don't need a portable project, to the point where the colorwork is getting jealous. Really, sweaters, I can love you both. I promise.

This post brought to you by my new wireless router, which finally consented to speak to the computers on our home network after a couple of hours of pleading and the intercession of a professional matchmaker from tech support.

I Think I've Finally Figured It Out

I noticed with the last colorwork sweater how astonishingly speedy it is. And the current sweater is proving just as quick. And I think I've figured out why. It's not that knitting with two hands is faster than knitting with one- it's not. And it's not that colorwork combines the speed of stockinette with the interest of patterned knitting, which it does. No, the reason colorwork goes so fast--

I just can't seem to put it down.

Long Time Courting

Long Time Courting is a band, and also an apt description of the slow start to the sweater I finally cast on this week. First the band- they're a local band- they play a mix of Celtic dance tunes, and folk songs in beautiful four-part harmony. They were playing in my town last night, so we went out to hear them. Fortunately for us, we had to double check the address of the venue, and were therefore some of the few who caught a late announcement of a location change. But the performers were unfazed and sounded terrific. Flute (always my fave!), accordian, fiddle, guitar and cello. You so rarely hear folk cello, but it's a awesome part of an ensemble- the deep mellow tone lends a lot of depth to the higher instruments. By all means check them out- you can hear some of their music on their website, and find out where they're playing next.

And, the sweater:


I bought the yarn for this sweater back in the spring. The original idea I had turned out to not work at all and I wound up buying a couple more colors of yarn, to give me some options with higher contrast. Since then, I've thought through a dozen ideas, played with options for styling, swatched, test knit patterns, swatched some more. And every idea I thought would be really cool--I hated when I knit it. Finally I decided to simplify. Picked some colors. Started knitting. Picked patterns out of a book on the fly. And- I love it. It's my new favorite project. I took it to work (not because I thought I've have time to work on it, just because). But that was fortunate, since I then had it with me when I had to wait for my car at the garage. (I had a flat. Which I changed in under fifteen minutes, but since my little compact only has a mini-tire, and said mini-tire is original equipment to the 9-year-old vehicle, I wasn't about to drive it a mile further than I had to. Hence, garage, new tire, and a little extra time with my new sweetie.) I took it to the concert. I took it with me in the car today.

If you haven't gotten it yet, I'm perhaps a tad more attached to this project than is completely healthy for a yarn-knitter relationship. My husband isn't bothered though...he's known about me and yarn for a while. And, after all, the sweater is for him.

Icewine Finish

Ta-da!

Icewine Mittens by Aemmeleia, Patons Classic Wool.

They're finally done and I'm quite delighted with the results. I much prefer mittens to gloves, and these are at least as heavy as my normal plain mittens (made with doubled worsted or bulky weight yarn). The smaller needles make for a denser mitten, so I think these will be at least as warm and considerably more windproof than my usual. And they'll certainly look far more elegant.

There were a few bumps along the way. I'm a big fan of charts- I'm a visual learner and they're pretty straightforward exercises in pattern recognition. Nor am I any stranger to math. I use algebra, geometry and statistics as part of my daily life, both at work and at home. I'm not intimidated by calculus and I even passed differential equations in college. (We won't discuss painful subjects like 'by how much?'.) So what I'm trying to say here, is there is no reason at all why these mittens should have given me any trouble, even if they are my first heavily charted project.

Now, granted, I didn't exactly follow the pattern as written. I suspect that this style of mitten is designed to be worn a bit loose. Or else to be worn by someone with slender hands and narrow thumbs. I found that although the size was fine for the palm, I really needed a gusset to comfortably accomodate the base of my thumb.


Now you're thinking, 'ahah, she messed with the pattern, no wonder it was difficult'- but truly, the thumb gusset wasn't the problem! Okay, sure, there was some inevitable ripping to go back and add in the gusset, but I was fairly pleased with how it fit into the pattern. And there was a bit more ripping on the second mitten to get the pattern around the second gusset to match the first. But I was prepared for that, and it didn't bug me.

No, the part that started to get a little wearing was on the second mitten, when I repeatedly messed up the charting on the back! And mostly it wasn't one stitch here and there, but starting a motif too early, starting a motif too late, ignoring it altogether until I reached the bit where the grapevine loops over to join the leaf...which I'd omitted to knit. Starting the tip decreases, failing to start the pattern change that lets the pattern lead gracefully into the tip decreases. And all of this on the *second* mitten. I can only conclude that on the first one, it was all still new so I was paying better attention. The pattern, I should say, is not in the least at fault here- it's beautifully written and very clear. No, all the credit belongs to me.

There was another minor modification too, that especially pleased me. Instead of drawing the last few stitches together at the tip, I looked for a way to graft it, a method I usually prefer. I wanted to preserve the little pattern that comes up the sides and across the tip. I thought it came out pretty well:


What I did, was I decreased the front and back down to one stitch, and then knotted those two with the main color (the green). At that point I had three stitches on each side still left on the needs, and just kitchenered across the top and wove in the ends. I love it when a plan comes together!

Now onto the next project...a mystery to be sure, since even I don't know what I'm starting next!

Hat's All, Folks

So, nothing says "spring" in New Hampshire like fourteen inches of fluffy white snow. Which is why I'm pleased to have finished my hat:


I've never liked the little bunched bit you get when you finish a hat (or mittens) by drawing the yarn through. I find that over time, it always loosens up and gives you a tiny little icy draft that seriously diminishes its appeal as outerwear. So I've taken to kitchenering the top, which gives a nice smooth finish with no holes.


The colorwork would have been smoother if I'd had all the same weight yarn- but I was just using a bunch of scraps I had lying around, so I have explored the entire gamut of 'worsted' weight. But still, I thought the colorwork was cheering, and a nice change from just stripes.


It's been getting a lot of use. You'd think having lived all my life in New England, I'd be used to the cold, but I seem to be getting thinner-skinned as I get older.

I could stop here but actually the post title is a lie. And I can't think of a whole post I could write about yet more red socks- but, here they are.


The first Christmas present of 2009 in the bag. Just a very simple plain foot with a ribbed leg, from the yarn left over from the baby sweater.

And for the new project on the needles, I couldn't resist casting on that new Deborah Norville yarn. I started off with the diamond rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, but found again that I don't like vertical patterns with strongly striping yarn. So I've changed over to something else, which will have to wait for another post. Still, the yarn is pretty. Here's the start of the sock with the former Diamond rib pattern: