Knitting the Blues

Blue MondayThe "Can You Stand Me Shoving Mittens Down Your Throat One More Time?" Edition

SUH-MACK!down.  Stash knitted into mittens. 

•  Pattern:  Postwar Mittens by Mary Ann Stephens for twist collective.
• Yarn: Shepherd Baby Wool 4-Ply
• Needles: size 0
• Cast On: January 23, 2010.
• Bound Off: February 12, 2010.
• Blocked: February 13, 2010.

I love my new mittens!  I keep wondering what took me so long to knit them?  I got this yarn dirt cheap at WEBS and the green was a compromise.  I think I kept thinking I would find a better green, but when my plan to knit up my stuff shifted into full gear I decided to just cast on with what I had.  I'M SO GLAD THAT I DID!  This green is perfect. 

But this is Blue Monday, not green whatever day.  And these are really blue mittens.  Two blues, two mittens.  Aren't they cute? 

I love the pointy tops, and the pointy thumbs and that there was improvement in my two color mitten knitting over my last pair (which I also LOVE!).  As is usual for me, the second mitten is not the same size as the first (socks, mittens, sleeves....if I have to knit a second one, my gauge is going to change ever so slightly, not enough to really matter, but enough that I know it) and it fits a little better than the first.  The knitting is a little better as well, but really.  You have to look pretty closely to see it.

Now I am going to have to find something else to cast on that matches my Wee Bunny Project bag.

I have been playing with the settings on my camera. No, not reading the manual. And no, not reading any photography websites. No, no, NO! Not taking a class. Just pushing buttons, making menu setting changes. The photos are coming out, well, differently. I really need to use my tripod, I know that helps, but I just keep shooting away, telling myself to get the tripod out and then telling myself that I'll get a few good shots...... Then I found a way to set it up to take three shots at some sort of different setting-aperature? Something like that, anyway. You just click three times, three different photos. I love that. The only thing is, when I go to upload the photos to my computer there are three times as many. TONS! And it takes a long time from the big camera. I am having fun with it, though.

2010.  Twenty-nine.  Olympic knitting is cruising along!  One sweater is blocking and needs buttons, my tree is knitted and needs a crochet base and tonight I think the tea cozy will get some attention.  Woo-HOO!!!  The thing is, my mitten queue has grown and grown....

Post One.The Postwar Mitten Post

This might be a two post day.  Or three.  Or one.  Posts keep rolling around in my head that, in my mind, would mean more if actually posted at the times the events are happening.  All in all the pull of my needles and sewing machine gives me plenty to show, but not the time to do it.  I never said I could do it all (or any of it for that matter) well or consistently.  Deal.  I am.  Sort of.  (This is where I could tangent off into the crazy that is me, but I am short on time today so I am squelching the demons back down.  Some days are easier than others.)

So, Postwar Mittens.  Love.  What's not to love, really?  Blue, blue, green.  The colors are so enchanting and the mitten so attractive the eye is drawn away from my still burgeoning skills in stranded mitten knitting.  That's the real trick, give 'em the old razzle dazzle.  Razzle dazzle 'em.  (You are welcome, I will be singing it all day as well.)

First mitten, first time finished.  No, I didn't love it then.  I loved most of it, but I didn't love the top.

Now, it is my way to finish as I go, so I set to weaving in my ends and finishing up the thumb as soon as the knitting was completed.  This is a mode of operating that almost always works for me, so as I proudly and confidently wove in the ends I totally ignored the niggling little voice whispering that maybe I would regret that.  Maybe this mitten wasn't as finished as I thought.  Stupid voice.

Some of the problem was mine, well maybe all of it, but I'm not sure.  This is my second colorwork mitten, my first being the Snowbird Mittens I finished last month.  I don't know all the little traditional finishing bits about mittens, so I followed the instructions to make a flat topped mitten and ended up with a mitten that only just fit, my middle finger pushing against the top.  Not ideal.  And looking around at other finished mittens I noticed that they were grafted with the same color that is running up the sides of the mitten, in this case the navy, giving it a continuous line over the top.  The instructions on the mitten were vague, having you knit with the main color of the mitten and then grafting the stitches, but not being clear on what color to graft with.  Then there was the crappy grafting job I did.  Ewwww.  I really wanted to re-graft, because that is just the way I am.  Must.Perfect.  Unfortunately that would still leave the mitten a little short and since the option to do a pointed top was available to me I went with that.

Okay, not a great photo of the fix, but it is much prettier, I promise.

I debated knitting the year on the thumb, but isn't there just something about preserving that moment in time, or in this case that year?  This was kind of a pain in the neck, because there is that green color on the outside of the thumb that has to be floated across the inside to get to the working side again.  (Clear.As.MUD!)  And on the rows with the green, the navy has to be floated across to be available to knit on the date side.  It is just really fiddly.  That isn't a problem with the second thumb, but thumbs being what they are, the little devils, it is still fiddly.  

 

The thumb instructions seemed to assume experience with thumb-top finishing as well and I ended up doing my own thing.  Working the second thumb now, I really wish I could remember what "my own thing" was.  Maybe it will come back to me.

2010.  Twenty-five.  Next up:  Let the games begin!

Whew!

And I mean that in more ways than one.  Despite sweating out the worry of having not enough mohair locks to finish thrumming these mittens, they are finished.  Just in time for the frigid cold we are living in the northeast.  Whew! on both counts.

First, the thrums.  I might never, ever do this again.  I am sure I want to knit thrummed mittens again, but I am pretty sure I don't want to do it with mohair locks.  It seemed like such a good idea at the time.  There were just too many issues with the locks.  First up:  The actual product.  As I said before, when I bought these I pulled a few out, they looked good and long, so I scooped up a bunch, had it weighed and bought it.  As I started knitting I found TONS of second cuts, lots of veggie matter, grass and dirt.  (Picking out what I could I tried really hard to believe that it was dirt and not poop.  Work with me here.)  I can't remember who I purchased these from, but clearly it is a ruse to get you to buy unusable fiber.  Dye it pretty and put it out there for suckers like me.  That all left a lot of unusable fiber and I was adding in pieces that were too short with longer pieces, but in vain because of problem number two:  Mohair locks are like fine, shiny, slippery silk.  I hesitate to even show the photos because the thrums look really bad.  I get them all pulled in and perfect looking and in seconds they slide out to an uneven mess.  I'm really hoping that the matting and felting that will happen with wear will help take care of that. 

Next, I haven't a single bit of usable mohair left.  I kept feeling like the woman, who when pulled over for speeding tells the policeman that she is running out of gas and trying to get to the gas station before that happens.  That was me with these mittens.  I kept knitting and knitting, in a race with the mohair.  What would happen first?  Would I run out of mohair?  Would I finish the mittens?  Would my fingers fall off?  In fear I started skimping a little on the thrums of the second mitten.  Hysterically, because that is how I morph when I am maniacally panicked and knitting away, I found that I must have thought I was skimping because the second mitten seems to be fuller than the first.  Go figure.  And did my fingers fall off?  It was a close call.  More and more I realize that knitting on smaller needles works for me.  Knitting aran weight yarn on size seven needles while wrangling that fly-away slippery mohair into usable thrums really hurt.  Oh, and the static!  A spray bottle filled with water and a few drops of baby oil helped a little.  This really was a project.  I am looking forward to making these again, but with roving that is nice and sticky and clean and smooth.  I have two skeins of this yarn left and I might just get the same color in a roving and make them again.

• Pattern: Thrummed Mittens by Jennifer Appleby (raverly link) in Interweave Knits, Winter 2006
• Yarn: Rowan Magpie Tweed from stash (leftovers from this sweater)
• Needles: sizes 6 and 7
• Cast On: January 26, 2010
• Bound Off: January 29, 2010

Do I like anything about them?  All I have to do is put my hand inside them to answer that.  Oh, YES!  YES!  They feel like heaven for the hands.  I'm wearing them around the house to get them felted inside.  Well, okay not yet.  I tried, but I can't get a single thing done while I have them on.  You should have seen me trying to type this post!  I made only two modifications to the pattern, I knitted an extra row before the final decrease at the top because there were thrums in the previous round and they would have been lost in decreases and I knit the thrums with the yarn in each stitch.  This pattern has you knitting the thrum alone and carrying the yarn behind the stitch.  I don't know why I didn't do it this way, I just felt like it should be.  So it is.

And because everybody seems to like these photos:

They look like an emerald wooly mammoth.

2010.  Fourteen.  On the SMACK!down scorecard these count for using stash yarn and stash fiber.  Only one skein of the yarn, though.  I have two skeins left.  If only I thought I would wear a hat.  Maybe a headband......

My Hands Are Always Cold!

Year round you can see me sitting on my hands to warm them up, running them under warm water or holding them over a grill or fire.  (To tell the truth, that is pretty accurate, except when I am trying to knit while tanning.  Then they turn into a sweaty mess that won't pass yarn through them.)  I've decided that a wardrobe of fingerless mitts and gloves will go a long way to keeping my wrists and knuckles warm no matter the season.  Added bonus?  It's a great stash-buster!

In the beginning on my Darn Pretty Needles size 1.  I am loving these things more and more, no matter the extra anxiety they bring to my life.

• Pattern:  Fishtail Wristwarmers by Alexandra Brinck, a free Ravely download. (Go download it, you know you wanna!)
• Yarn:  Koigu KPPPM, long languishing in the stash, now has a purpose in life!
• Needles:  Darn Pretty Ones!  size 1
• Cast On:  April 7, 2009
• Bound Off:  April 19, 2009

You can't see from the photos because it is nearly impossible to get the focus right when you are using the timer to get the photos, but these babies reach to almost half-way to my elbow.  That is a lot longer than I am used to, sure to be useful during the cooler days when I have a t-shirt on and my bones are chilled.  Plus, I have only a teensy bit of that skein of yarn left.  Yay!

The destashing is sort of viral.  It takes over the soul and the more I unload lovingly sell away, the more I want to let go of, either by selling or knitting.  I keep adding things to my destash page and some people have had luck making me offers for things still sitting in my stash.  It can't hurt to ask, can it? 

So, of the five knits most recently added as finished to my Ravelry project page, all have been from the stash.  I wish I could say that I have not added to the stash at all, but my additions have been modest and called for.  I am still stashing Elann den-m-nit for the Picnic Afghan, so more of that has been added, mostly thanks to ravelry trades or purchases.  Of course, as soon as I started stashing for it Elann ran out of one of the colors.  I have been able to make that up on Ravelry, so I only need more of the ecru.  That is the good of Ravelry.  Of course, there is the bad as well.  When I saw this (raverly link), I knew I had to have a small shawl in the same yarn and the second I found where I could purchase it, I burned the phone lines (cell towers?) to get it.  I've been pretty good about the impulse buying, but couldn't help myself with that one.

Exactly what it will be I am not sure of yet, though you can bet I've wasted many minutes searching for just the right thing.  I think I have it narrowed down......

Fifty-five.  We won't speak of this stash addition, I hate it when Elann sells those whole bags for cheap-o money!  And you wouldn't think I had a use for that yarn, would you.  But, I might....  (I just love dot.dot.dot.  I'll bet you couldn't tell.....)

And I Said I Wouldn't Be Joining.....

If only to get these mittens on my hands before the last breath of winter is gasped, I joined the NaKniMitMo thing and am working on my Snowbird Mittens.  What you see isprogress to the same place I have knitted to twice before and am ripping back again one more time.  It got all wonky and I have want to try and fix it one more time.  Fingers crossed.  Inside the mittens soon, I hope.

Eleven.  It is really starting to look like a knitting blog around here!