FO: Ply by Night cowl and mitt set

Pattern: cowl blogged here, mitts just made up out of my head using linen stitch and more or less the same made up pattern I used for the manly mitts.
Yarn: handspun BFL singles from Chris at Briar Rose Fibers, blogged here in its final form. I used about 3/4 of the yarn, lets say 180 yds for the pair.
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm
Start/finish (for mitts): 12 December - 14 December 2009
Comments: No mods because it's my own pattern. I cast-on 47 stitches and worked in linen stitch pattern for 2 inches. Then I increased one stitch at beginning and end of row (2 sts increased) every third row five times, working new stitches in pattern. worked for about 2 more inches, then put 10 extra stitches on waste yarn, rejoined and worked 2 inches. Bound off in purl. Picked up 10 extra stitches plus 3 more and worked in linen stitch for 0.75 inches around the thumb, then bound off in purl.

Thankfully my mom's hands aren't too big, because the linen stitch has very little elasticity. But the set was very well received!

FO: Hat and mitten set

Back to the Christmas rundown. This was certainly the year for handspun gifts.

The hat was knit in July, and I had enough of the yarn (blogged here) to make some matching mittens.

Pattern: Robin's Egg Blue hat by Rachel Iufer, inspiring matching mittens
Yarn: Hello Yarn Fiber Club superwash BFL in "Night Sky", 2 skeins bulky weight, 245 yds. I used probably 200 yds for the set.
Needles: US 10/6.0 mm - next time I'll go down a needle size on the mittens - they were a bit loosely knit.
Comments/mods: I've already blogged the hat, so I'll just comment a bit on the mittens. I figured out the number of stitches I wanted for the folded over cuff, and worked that like the band on the hat. Then I knit a generic mitten shape, with an inset thumb (as opposed to a thumb gusset deal). The mittens are a bit loose, but I think they can work with liners if it's really cold.

The buttons came from some I salvaged off my Mountain Mohair sweater when I turned it into spaghetti. I think they work well, and the receipient seems to like them!

FO: Handspun manly mitts

Pattern: my own, a simple k6, p2 rib for the body of the mitt, with 8 stitches increased for the thumb gusset.
Yarn: Handspun BFL from Spunky Eclectic, detailed here
Needles: US 3/3.25 mm
Start/finish: 2 December - 6 December 2009
Gauge: ~6 st/inch
Comments/mods: Made for my brother, who lives in DC, where it gets cold, but not really really cold. I suspect he won't wear these much in the winter, but they'll be good for spring/fall transitional times.

I worked four rows of k1, p1 ribbing before switching to the main stitch pattern and worked for 2.5 inches before starting the thumb increases. Then put thumb stitches on waste yarn and worked the body of the mitt for another 1.5 inches before ending with 4 rows of ribbing. Then picked up thumb stitches plus 4 more and worked four rows of ribbing. Done and dusted (in the local vernacular).

I hope everyone has a great New Year's Eve tonight!

FO: Homage to Hello Yarn

Of all the Christmas presents, these were the hardest to give up, by far!

Backs

Palms

Pattern: Norwegian Snail Mittens by Adrian Bizilia
Yarn: Handspun BFL in natural brown and "Norway" (dyed by Adrian as part of the Hello Yarn Fiber Club)
Needles: US 00/1.75 mm (hoo boy!)
Gauge: ~ 9 stitches/inch
Start/finish: 8 November - 6 December 2009
Comments/mods: I've blogged about the spinning here. The 2.5 oz of brown BFL I originally spun up ended up being too thick as a 3-ply, so I spun up another ounce quickly and 2-plied it, getting ~70 yards. That worked perfectly. I ended up having to spin up another ounce later (72 yds) but didn't finish it all off. Let's say ~120 yds of the brown.

I didn't use up all of the Norway I'd spun either. As you can see, the stripes didn't match up as well as I was hoping, but I refused to let that bother me. Otherwise, I would have been splicing and swearing about small bits of handspun gone to waste and so on. I think I probably used two thirds of each skein, so maybe 3 oz total? Again, since I didn't measure the yardage, I have no idea how much I used. I'll have to measure the leftovers and weight them to get an estimate.

The pattern was great fun to knit, although I have issues with using sport weight yarn on miniscule needles. My bright blue metal size 00 dpns are now bent and tortured from the effort of trying to knit with this stuff. I adore the stripes on the palms. Maybe even more then the snails...

It's a very good thing these were a bit tight around the hand, otherwise my mother-in-law might be going home with very chilly fingers. I hope these beauties enjoy life in Vermont!

ETA (30 Dec): my MIL wore these yesterday on our poorly planned hike in the rain/sleet/snow and her hands stayed dry and warm enough that she had to take the mittens off. There's something to be said for teeny tiny needles I guess!

FO: Veil of Isis, the details

Now that all the Giftmas knitting has been gifted, I can actually get my brag on about some of these babies. Some have already been displayed, but here's the first of the secret projects.

Pattern: Veil of Isis from BadCatDesigns
Yarn: Indecita Baby Alpaca, fingering weight, purchased in Cuzco by Ironman way back when, a bit more then four skeins, but I don't know the yardage
Needles: US 2/2.75 mm
Gauge: it's lace. Who cares.
Start/finish: This was my Ravelympics 2008 project, so I started August 8, 2008. Finished November 5, 2009.
Comments/mods: The Albatross is finished, long live the Albatross. I decided that doing my first beaded anything would be a good challenge for the 2008 Ravelympics, and doing an entire lace shawl in two plus weeks would be a serious challenge. I was right. The beads slowed me way down, but I still don't think I could have gotten the whole thing done without the beads. Lace is hard, and when the rows got up in the neighborhood of 400+ stitches each, things slowed down even more...

The pattern is not for the faint of heart, as it requires being able to read your knitting and figure out where you are both within the row and within the pattern. The pattern is charted, but not for the entire shawl, so it takes some paying attention to keep things going. That being said, the pattern is fairly intuitive once you get into the swing of it. And the results are beyond gorgeous.

The pattern calls for five repeats of chart B, but I did four. I used size 6 black seed beads that I found at the local Houston bead shop. Hundreds of them. And a very small crochet hook. I got one tube of beads to start, which had ~600 beads in it - those were used up about two thirds of the way through. Suffice to say I lost count and there are a metric crapton of shiny little black bits.

Unblocked the shawl was 38 inches along the diagonal and 28 inches along each side. I messed up a bit with the blocking wires, and ended up blocking it in a slightly circular shape, but it ended up about 50 inches in diameter.

This baby went to my sister-in-law, who is possibly the only person I know elegant enough to be able to use this. She seems to be enjoying it so far.

It's December 23rd, and my Christmas knitting is (almost) done

Behold. One pair of (unfelted, unsewn - that's todays project) Felted Clogs.

This brings the list to:

Person A - done
Person B - done
Person C - done
Person D - done
Person E - done
Person F - done
Person G - done
Person H - done
Person I - still not done, but this one isn't due in the States until mid-January, so I've still got some breathing room there.

Now the only people left to knit for are my poor neglected daughters' heads. The Nemo hat is on the ribbing finally.

This is the last time I knit a hat for anyone in fingering weight yarn...

I can manage to do it, I've also got this lovely stuff for a hat for Devil.

It's pink, so the chances she'll actually wear it seem pretty decent.

How's your Christmas knitting going?

Fiber Friday: Cheating

Soooooo...I know I said I wasn't going to do any spinning until I was done with the Christmas knitting, and I wasn't, but my windfall at Stash last week got the better of me. Once I'd finished the next-to-last Christmas present, I broke down and started in on this:

I've changed my mind about the composition of this top. There may still be merino in there, but I think there's also some silk - there are white bits scattered throughout that tend to not draft the same as the other fibers. Maybe it's tencel - it's clumping in a manner similar to Air - but in any case, the singles are turning out beautifully.

Slightly tweedy, with turquoise and royal blue and yellow and green and white. I'm spinning this on automatic - worsted inchworm draft, singles ~24 wpi. Brainless default spinning. There will be enough time for purposeful spinning next month...

And just to show that I'm not slacking on the last present issue:

One skein of Green Mountain Spinnery Double Twist, and some recycled red yarn left over from my Gathered Pullover. In progress, and halfway up the foot. Thank goodness these things are fast!

Teaser

Just to prove that I have been doing something...

I know this is getting boring...

But since all I've been doing is working on projects that I can't actually show you, I can only update the list as items are finished and checked off. Sorry!

Not surprisingly, things have changed again...

Person A - mittens from my birthday present from my MIL (and no, it's not her). There are not started, nor is yarn chosen. Move along here, there's nothing to see I've gone back to the original gift for said person, which is finished. Check number one.
Person B - cowl and maybe a hat from same yarn. Cowl done, hat, not so much cowl is still done, but in keeping with the rest of the Christmas knitting this year, I think the hat will now become mitts.
Person C - hat or some manly fingerless mitts. He could carry off fingerless mitts that are alas, not started finished! Blocked even. Check number two.
Person D - ?????? Fuck. Alpaca scarf. Done. Numero tres crossed off the list.
Person E - handspun mittens. One finished, one started but I had to spin some more yarn. And knit on tiny needles. Hmmmm...this is the TV knitting except that I am out of yarn and haven't soaked/thwacked the newest yarn, plied last night. Sigh. Finished, put check number 4 on the list.
Person F - hat and matching mittens. Done! Blocked even. Hooray! Check number five.
Person G - felted clogs. Not started. I've got yarn somewheres though. Might could go and dig it out while my new handspun is drying tonight... Still not started, nor have I gone stash diving for yarn.
Person H - Albatross. Which is done but not blocked. Blocked, but still pinned out on the guest bed. Which needs to be freed up by Monday when the first set of overseas guests arrives. Check number six.
Person I - mittens, which are done, but there's another project to go out with them in the mail that won't be done for a while Mittens have been repurposed for someone else, but the socks are almost half done.

So if I can count accurately (one can only hope) that means I have only two presents that haven't been cast on and one that is halfway done. That's actually pretty good, although I forgot to include Boo's hat on this list, but it's about halfway done too. I must needs cast on for one of the two remaining items tonight, but the situation is not too dire. At least not yet...but you never know when an emergency might strike!

And I promise, as soon as I'm able to pull my act together enough during the (too few) daylight hours, I'll take some teaser shots of everything that is done so far and actually put some pictures in one of these posts.

Where have I been?

Ummmm...I wish I had a good excuse, but I'm not even up to the halfway point in the Nano writing fail exersize, and I certainly haven't been doing much spinning or knitting...there has been cooking, however, but I eat most of that before I get pictures taken.

The Christmas list is under revision yet again.

Person A - mittens from my birthday present from my MIL (and no, it's not her). There are not started, nor is yarn chosen. Move along here, there's nothing to see.
Person B - cowl and maybe a hat from same yarn. Cowl done, hat, not so much.
Person C - hat or some manly fingerless mitts. He could carry off fingerless mitts that are, alas, not started.
Person D - ?????? Fuck.
Person E - handspun mittens. One finished, one started but I had to spin some more yarn. And knit on tiny needles. Hmmmm...this is the TV knitting except that I am out of yarn and haven't soaked/thwacked the newest yarn, plied last night. Sigh.
Person F - hat and matching mittens. Done! Blocked even. Hooray!
Person G - felted clogs. Not started. I've got yarn somewheres though. Might could go and dig it out while my new handspun is drying tonight...
Person H - Albatross. Which is done, but not blocked. That could be another project for tonight, hunh?
Person I - mittens, which are done, but there's another project to go out with them in the mail that won't be done for a while.

So, nine people, not counting the ones I live with, who are in line for knitted goodness. And I have 4.5 done (if I count the Albatross as done when really, it isn't). I suspect this is my Puritan, self-flagellating ancestry making itself known in a modern fashion, but I can't be the only one that does this, right?

Right?

Shut up crickets, you're too loud.

Ehem.

You'd think, given the other project I've taken on this month, that very little would be getting done in the knitting department.

However, knitting makes very good procrastination/distraction from writing bad fiction (really, really bad fiction), so here's some of the things in the works:

A quick pair of socks for Boo using my 99 pence Oxfam yarn. It's been a long time since I did any really self-striping socks, and they're kind of fun.

Why write a novel when you can write a knitting pattern? Indeed...this is Version 2.0 of these mitts, which I'd really like to have done and published by the beginning of December. They'd make really good Christmas presents! This version is in Blue Sky Alpacas alpaca/silk. Yum.

And speaking of Christmas,

Back and,

palm of the Snail Mittens. I am adoring everything about these except for the fact that I'm having to knit them on size 000 (or 00 - I'm not sure) needles to get gauge. Ooof!

So, what's on your needles for the holidays?

Fall roundup

Looking back at my posts, I realize that I never did a round up for September, so you get a twofer for the last two months.

Knitting:
Aestlight (S)
Nemo mittens (S)
Seablue playmate (O)
Jack-in-the-box mittens (O)
Bramblewood vest (O)
Eunice (not blogged, but O)
Handspun mittens to match this (also unblogged, but O)

Spinning:
BFL Jupiter (S)
Norway/brown BFL for another Christmas present (S)
October, alas, was spinning-free

Other:
Remade skirt for moi
Two princess costumes, finished before the very last minute. Wiktory!

Update on the Christmas list, which has undergone some revision:

4 pairs of mittens - 2 pairs down, 2 to go
2 pairs fingerless mitts - 1 pair started, to be gifted early
2 pairs felted clogs - these are a last minute deal
At least two hats - this has turned into three hats, but only one is in fingering weight and taking forever.
Added to the list: my Albatross, aka Veil of Isis, is destined as a gift. I'm on row 27 of 31 of the edging so the train is barreling down the tunnel. I also need something for Ironman. Who knows what that will be. But I don't think anyone is getting socks.

Oooof.

I like mittens for big people too

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...