I love mittens

At least mittens for little people.

Look at the little fin - so cute!

Pattern: Nemo Mittens by Sigurlaug Eva Stefansdottir (both Ravelry links)
Yarn: KnitPicks Essential, dyed by yours truly. I used 4 gr white, 3 gr black, and ~10 gr orange (works out to approximately 19/14/46 yds respectively of fingering weight yarn)
Needles: US 1/2.00 mm
Gauge: 8 sts/11 rows per inch
Finished circumference/length: 5 inches/5.25 inches (cuff to pointy tip)
Comments/mods: The "only" modification I made was to switch yarn and needle size. The pattern calls for sport weight/size 2.5 (3.0 mm) needles for a 4-6 year old size, but I had fingering weight, so size 1 it was. I probably could have gotten away with US 2/2.75 mm ok, but this gauge will be a bit warmer perhaps.

These were so fast! Done, with fins added and ends woven in after three evenings work. Love it. I hope Boo loves them as well, although I'm not sure what she thinks about mittens...

The yarn for these was recycled from some KnitPicks Essential that I dyed for some socks for my sister-in-law about three years ago. It was my first dyeing experience, so I used Kool Aid and ended up with a range of reds, pink, and purple. I took the largest ball of leftovers (41 g of red) and overdyed it with some yellow Jacquard Acid dye in the hopes that it would end up kind of orange. Some pink (5 g) got overdyed with black. I also had a full skein of Bare waiting around, so I knew I could dye more if needed.

Soaked the yarn, and then put both into my handy dandy crock pot for the dyeing.

The pink to black went into a glass jar in the middle while the red to orange was carefully arranged around the outside.

A few hours later, they were all done. The pink-to-black transition went very well, but the red-to-orange still looked really red. I rinsed them out and discovered that the red was bleeding. Quite a bit in fact. Bleeding enough that I got a bit concerned about what Walrus' socks had done to the rest of her laundry (sorry B!). But...I rinsed until I got sick and tired of rinsing, and then hung it up to dry.

I was concerned that it was going to end up too red, but I think it's alright. The mittens are awfully cute though. So cute that I think Boo will need a matching Nemo hat...

Slogging along

I started some socks for a friend's Christmas present a few weeks ago, and they've been a tough row to hoe in several different ways.

The pattern is lovely, with lots of twisted stitches,

and the yarn is also lovely (and sparkly!), if a bit splitty at times.

But the absolute killer was the heel flap, with multiple rows of k1, ptbl...

Oh my aching wrist! I have a bone deposit on the back of my right hand that, 99% of the time, I don't even notice. (The 1% of the time I notice it is when I hit it against something and jump around turning the air blue for a few minutes because O The Pain.) However, every so often it becomes an issue. Like, oh lets say hypothetically speaking: when I get all fired up to finish a heel flap and end up totally wracking my hands doing ptbl on size 1 needles. Ooof.

Since my reckless foray into heel flapitude this weekend, my right hand/wrist have been less then happy with me, to the extent that large doses of NSAIDS seem to be in order. So in order to give it a bit of a break*, last night I cast on for the first of three parts of a present for Boo.

To say that my younger child has something of an obsession with animals would be a laughable understatement. Nemo is one of her all time faves. So I was hunting around Ravelry, and came across a free (hooray!) pattern for Nemo mittens. Originally using sport weight yarn, and sized for 4-6 years old, I'm using some left over Knit Picks Essential that I dyed (another post there), and size 1 needles. I think they'll fit. And they're using so little yarn, that I think I'll be able to bust her out a Nemo hat as well. Yee haw!

*To any normal person, a break would mean "Stop knitting you idiot!" However, the holidays are right around the corner and I Have Gifts To Make.

Fiber Friday: Homage to Adrian

It's getting to be that time of year...

Yup, time to take stock of the available knitted holiday gifts, and set out a plan for the fall. My attention lately has been mostly taken up by knitting for me me me, but with the end of September rapidly approaching, I spent some time making a list of what needs to be done.

Here's the general list:
4 pairs of mittens
2 pairs fingerless mitts
2 pairs felted clogs
At least two hats, one in this and one in something yet to be determined.

I've also had stranded knitting on my mind in a major way. I'm not so good with the color choices however, so today I'm casting on for a project that will be Hello Yarn from start to finish (except for the spinning/knitting parts, so really the colors and the pattern are Adrian's genius).

Fiber: Hello Yarn fiber club BFL in the "Norway" colorway, 4 oz split in half lengthwise and spun on to seperate bobbins, then chain plied to create skeins with (hopefully) matching stripes, plus some gorgeous grey-brown BFL from Halcyon Yarns for the contrast.

Like all of Adrian's fibers, this was lovely to spin. The colors in the original top didn't really grab me,

but boy did it turn out nicely in the finished yarn.

I have no idea as to wpi or yardages. I spun up 4 oz of the Norway, and maybe 2.5 oz of the brown BFL to start with. I have another 4 oz of Norway in reserve, if needed.

Pattern: Snail Mittens by Adrian Bizilia (aka helloyarn).
Recipient: TBD. Anyone want to chime in as to why they should get this FO? I'm open to bribes...

A great birthday present

So my birthday was a couple of weekends ago, and it was really nice. I'm not one for huge birthday celebrations at all, and in fact, when IM asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I was stumped. I don't need more stuff in any way shape or form, even the wooly kind. So I said I wanted a nice day with him and the girls, and chocolate cake.

I got all of that - I slept in, went for a nice bike ride, then took the girls to Richmond Park to ogle the deer and build forts while IM went for a run and met us there. We were going to have a picnic dinner originally, but didn't get ourselves organized in time, so we came back for a lovely dinner at home, which I did not cook at all, followed by chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles that the three of them made.

Then this comment appeared on the blog. And I thought "Yippee!" About a week earlier I had been slouching around the Rav forums and found a thread about a blog contest. SaRi had a copy of a new sock book, that she has a pattern in, to give away, so she was having a contest. The contest closed on my birthday, so I entered, hoping for the best. And I won! Strangely enough, SaRi used to live in the same part of London that I current inhabit, and she was coming to town for IKnit Weekender, so we made plans to meet up and have a coffee and a book handover.

We met at a coffee shop on Tottenham Court Road, and proceeded to spend a lovely half hour looking at the book and the gorgeous yarns she'd been acquiring. It was before the Weekender had started, so I didn't get to hear about any of those events, but from her posts it looks like it was a huge amount of fun.

On to the book. It's lovely, but there are two particular reasons why I'm very excited about it. The spiral bound spine, so it will lie nice and flat when opened,

and the sheer number of patterns inside.

30 patterns in 176 pages, including an introduction, some directions for handy things like different cast-ons and bind offs, and some gorgeous photographs. With this addition to my library, I think I have now reached a state heretofore unknown to man:

Sock Patterns Amassed Beyond Life Expectancy* (SPABLE). And I can't think of a better state to be in. Thank you Sabine!

* That's not to say that I won't get more mind you. Cat Bordhi's new book is now available for pre-order...

FO: Sunset Aestlight

Pattern: Aestlight, by Gudrun Johnston, size large
Yarn: Corriedale handspun, dyed by Adrian, colorway Thrive, spun by me, ~500 yds/121 gr of fingering weight.
Needles: US 4/3.5 mm
Start/finish: August 20-September 1 (knitting)/September 15 (blocking)
Comments: This shawl was a joy to knit. I've blogged about the yarn already, so I won't go into details of the spinning, but the knitting was lovely. The only real modification I think I did was to use a smaller size needle, in the hopes of being able to knit the larger size and not run out of yarn. Finished, blocked dimensions are 21 inches deep and 51 inches wide.

It starts off with a big garter stitch triangle, with yarn over increases at the start of every row. These loops are then picked up to knit a garter/lace/garter border around the long sides of the triangle, and then it finishes with a lovely pointed edging that is knit sidewise and attached to the live stitches as you go along.

The pattern was very well written and presented, and Gudrun also has a group on Ravelry, with a KAL thread and lots of helpful tips. I had some issues with the last of the border sections, mostly because I was being an idiot, so there are no issues that I could find with the pattern. In fact, if you're new to lace knitting, this would be a great pattern to start with. Since it's largely based in garter stitch, there is almost no purling at all. And the lace patterns used are fairly straightforward once you get through a couple of repeats.

When I got to the edging, I had an OCD moment and started weight remaining yarn. I made it through 2/3 of one long side before I finished the first ball, so I started with the greeny-bluey-yellowy stuff for the section around the point, and then switched back to the yarn I had set aside partway up. In the end, I had plenty of yarn.

These are going to end up in the Sock Yarn Blanket

The transitions are somewhat abrupt on both sides, but so what. My OCD moment has passed and I'm happy with it.

As always the transition from blob,

through blocking,

to finished object is so, so satisfying. I got some blocking wires while we were in Maine, and this was their maiden voyage. They worked pretty well, although I chose to thread them through the shawl before soaking it, and then had a devil of a time trying to squash the thing together enough so that it would fit into the sink and actually get wet. Never mind, it all worked out well in the end.

It's definitely my favorite part about knitting lace. Devil showed continued interest in photography, and insisted on taking some of the FO photos. Girlfriend definitely needs her own camera.

Holy fuck I'm getting grey...

The colors of this shawl make me think of Arizona sunsets, and are sure to be a huge hit on those cold, grey London winter days that I know are just around the corner. I can't wait.