Success!

Well, the success is kind of speculative at this point, as I have not actually had Andy try the gloves on, but... I did it! I finished the glove-mitts for my brother-in-law! I even have pictures as proof - incredibly shaky, blurry proof!

I had to re-start the second mitten-top because I forgot that, in order for the tops to work, I would have to treat them as a mirrored pair instead of being reversible like the gloves would be without a top. I actually got in about 18 rounds of knitting before I tried it on my right hand and immediately thought to myself... "Uh oh." Luckily I was having some sort of period of clarity, and picking up the stitches on the other side of the mitt was actually fairly easy, and starting over wasn't the drama I thought it might be (or made out to be in my Facebook status message... heh).

The first mitten-top - on the left glove - was really awkward and misshapen. I attempted something like an anatomical sock-toe, trying to accommodate the shape of the hand, without really thinking about the comfort-factor of a mitten. I had also tried to look for a mitten pattern online that might be helpful, but I just couldn't find what I needed. So I took a look at one of my standard beanies, where the shaping is circular but if you lay the hat down flat it will curve at the top instead of having sharp slopes. In that fashion, I did some gauge/measurement stuff, and figured out how to do a series of decreases at the top that was more like the top of a hat, and it really seems to work. You get that nice, oval, typical-mitten shape at the top (no weird angular bits!) and it still accommodates the fingers. I did take notes at this stage, but I'm also documenting here for future reference!

Hopefully the gloves will fit and the, uh, brilliance of the mitten tops will exempt me from my Christmas-gift tardiness. A gal can dream, eh?

Having crossed this one off my list... it's on to the next round. Next up: Rachel's cardigan, Anna's glove-mitts, and a commission for Etsy as soon as the yarn comes in the mail! (P.S.: I listed two new hats on the store... Fairy Floss and Hamilton. Check 'em out! :) )

Additional pics of the gloves: one with the top pulled back, one with the top on:

Lazy Sunday

In an attempt to at least knit something this week (I have a theory that the cold has, in part, frozen both my brain and my hands, so the major projects on the to-do list have hit a standstill) I cast on 120 sts and began work on a simple ribbed cowl. Just a little bit of stuff to keep the breeze out, without the work intensity of a long scarf (like the one I knit for Nathan - I've had the opportunity to borrow it a couple of times to test its windchill-blocking abilities and I am really happy with it!). I started it with the intent of honing a particular design I've been working on for the last year or so, but right now I really can't decide if I'll just leave it as-is or continue. I know, I'm being very vague - but a gal has to at least try and protect her intellectual property before she casts it out into the world, right? ;)

So, in the meantime, with no FOs or even pics of UFOs to compensate my lack of both knitting and content, here is one of my favourite LOLcats of all time:


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

UFOs becoming FOs at Long Last!

I finally finished my husband's scarf... that I started probably around the end of 2008. I remember this because I worked on it during many theatre-viewings of *mumble*"Twilight"*mumble*. Ahem. (I can't excuse myself, really, but I think Carter Burwell's understated yet incredibly emotional score got to me.) ANYHOW. While tearing around the living room trying to find a lost ball of yarn (as ever), I found the scarf and realised I didn't have that much to do for it to be finished. I weaved in some ends - not many, as I carried the floats from the stripes on the inside of the work (the scarf was knit in the round), then sewed the ends up using blanket stitch. It's made from acrylic (except for the orange panel stripe, which was leftover Mission Falls superwash wool), but since it was knit in the round it's double-thickness. It's also quite wide. So if anything it will have an insulating effect and keep a chill wind from acheiving total domination. Trying it on myself, I can attest that it's quite squishy and cosy... if I can get around to it, with all of the projects on my ever-growing to-do list, I might consider production for the store! :)

Pictured: Nathan and Dog enjoying the cosiness.

Stop Dithering -and- Knit Something!

That's gonna be my motto in 2010. "Stop Dithering and Knit Something". I already wrote it on one of my mini-whiteboards (in place of the to-do list that had been languishing for four weeks; the other mini-whiteboard has a list of my projects on it, including "Anna's GloveMitts", "Rachel's Cardigan", and "Finn's HK mask thingy" - the one where I'm trying to reproduce this kitty hat for my dear friend's kitty... haven't forgotten it, I just got sidetracked by a lack of skills on this particular one. As much as it pains me to admit it, I imagine it would actually work better in crochet... the needlecraft that eludes me).

ANYHOW.

You know those "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters? (As seen to your left, so if you didn't know... now you do.) And how there seems to be a million variations on that theme available for purchase on places around the internets? (Such as the prints turned up from a search for "keep calm", here - that's going to bring up every recently listed item tagged in such a manner, so the content is dynamic, and I hold no responsibility for lewd variations on the theme that might pop up. Disclaimer out!) (Also: Keep Calm Shop on Etsy.)

Well, I want one - in a more muted tone, perhaps, that reads "STOP DITHERING and KNIT SOMETHING". My problem, mostly, is dithering. If I come to a fork in the road on a project - some place where I don't quite understand the instructions, or the next stop seems difficult or intimdating (say, the point at which one might start creating fingers in a pair of cut-off-finger gloves), I dither. I will work on the item for ten minutes, then find something else to do, like faff about on the internet for an hour, or play a computer game, or watch "Weatherscan" for half an hour. It's not productive. It's a waste of my focus. But it allows me to escape the problem I'm having. And I need to not only face the problems head-on, but have more faith in my ability to work through those problems! Though I often self-deprecate to the point of being annoying, I know at the core of it that I'm not a stupid woman. I am a self-taught knitter. I decided that I finally wanted to learn, after all those years, and I somehow got up the gumption to do something about it. Here I am, three years later, knitting away and building my skills and even getting paid to produce items (self-promotion holla!), and I still, when blocked by a problem, dither. I need to learn to forge ahead. Of all of the problems I've ever faced, learning how to knit glove-fingers is really the least of it.


In the meantime, I'll look to this variation on the Keep Calm poster: Get Excited and Make Things. As long as you don't intend to sell it, this image is generously offered free for personal use!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'd love to stop dithering about on my blog, but I have some sleeping to do. ;)

Merry late Christmas!

Making this an especially late post for Christmas is the picture I'm about to upload of my brother-in-law's fingerless gloves:
...well, "glove". It's coming along now that I'm actively trying to rid myself of the phobia of knitting fingers. I've already frogged the middle finger twice, but I think I've got it down, now. I just want to make sure I'm not going around cutting off circulation with these things.

The original pattern is "Cigar" from the Summer '05 issue of Knitty, but since this glove was only half-finished (hadn't started on the fingers yet) I managed a fitting and a consultation with my brother-in-law... he likes the yarn, doesn't quite like the construction, so we're going to try for fingerless-at-the-knuckles, with a mitten shell. When he suggested he wanted a pull-back mitten top I was like, "What's WITH you kids and the mitten shells?" ...at which point he was a little taken aback. Sorry! That's just the pressure of a deadline talkin' there.

In other news, I was pointed towards an amazing knitted Viking hat/beard combo from an especially metal-leaning friend of mine. (Gals: if you like dudes on bikes who wear leather jackets and rock big ol' mustaches, but also likes puppies and kittens, please allow me to hook you up with this guy!) The original post is at Splendor, and I managed to tease out instructions for the bearded toque here. AMAZING!

Well, back to the glove... hopefully by sometime tomorrow I may be able to amend that to gloves, plural!

My Workspace

It's a little blue-ish, but this is a picture I took to celebrate having a temporary work space! I have had a desk for a while, but it's sort of languishing in our spare bedroom... then when my husband received a desk for his birthday, we were too tired to rearrange the livingroom (we planned on keeping it down here so he would have a place to study), so it was pushed in front of the front window. So far we haven't been able to get the room rearranged, but we're sharing the desk for the time being. It's nice to have a place to keep a few books out and be able to sit and have a pattern laid out flat in front of you! I already feel like it's helped me to be more productive :)

My First (Dog) Sweater

This week I finally finished a small sweater project I've had in the works for a couple of months now: a dog sweater for Bailey, the precious pooch of my friend Eva. Eva and Bailey come into my workplace every week and have tea and sit and read for a bit (well, Bailey doesn't drink tea, but if you know of a dog that does... leave a comment, that's pretty remarkable!). And I thought Bailey would look darling in a sweater! So we took measurements, and we found the perfect yarn, and I swatched away. I didn't follow an exact pattern, but I did use Kristi Porter's "Knitting For Dogs" as a reference.

I had to put the pieces up against Bailey and make notes where to place the front leg-holes, but other than that the construction was super-easy. The top piece (the back of the sweater) is slightly longer and wider, and the bottom piece (the "front") is skinner and not as long (...you have to make sure the pup in question can't piddle on her/his sweater!). To straighten out the edges I used garter stitch. The difficult part for me was seaming - I'm sort of a novice at mattress stitch, though I've practiced and hope to get better - I suppose I could have left more selvage on parts of it, but overall I'm happy with how it turned out. It was also a perfect fit, and Bailey wasn't bothered at all by wearing it! Here's some pics of her in her brand new sweater, and some pictures of the yarn up close & personal. (It's kind of nubbly - it's easy to get your needles caught in the "bits", but it knits up beautifully and feels gorgeously soft.)

Click to enlarge the pics :)