FO: Susie Roger's Reading Mitts

yummy yarn, fab pattern

Regular readers of my blog will recognize this pattern: Susie Roger's Reading Mitts, a favourite of mine and counting this pair, I've knit this pattern three times. This time around I've knit the mitts in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK and they are fabulous! Buttery soft and smooth, the yarn was an absolute pleasure to knit and very luxurious to wear.

Each mitt took about 2/3rds of a 50gr ball, so I'm left with enough to make one more mitt. Which begs the question ... should I buy one more ball to make another matching pair? On the one hand, a pair of these gloves would be a very nice Christmas present for some lucky person on my gift list. But on the other hand, I'm supposed to be on a yarn diet, right? Can I consider it stash-busting if I buy one ball in order to use up two smaller leftover balls?

As you may have guessed from the radio silence on this end, my week was ridiculously busy. What with going into work early and getting home late I've barely had a minute to knit ... or blog. These gloves were pretty much knit in transit. Precious little progress has been made on my vest but hopefully that will change over the course of the weekend. In fact, maybe that's what I should do next? Hmmmm. Knitting? Or laundry?

work in progress Wednesday

The news today on the vest front is all good. I've knit the fronts to the shoulders, I've sorted out the dropped stitch on the back and now there a just a handful of rows before I work the shoulder shaping and do the 3-needle bindoffs. Once that's all done there are armhole bands and neck bands to work. Now that things are back on the rails with this project I'm feeling a lot more motivated.  My plan is to finish this vest in time for a Friday post. And based on the weather forecast for this week maybe I can even wear it on Friday.

In contrast the news on the sock front is all bad. The colourwork cuff is too tight and too inflexible for my foot. My coworker is much more petite, so the cuff fits her alright but the rest of the sock is just plain huge.  To make it work for me I'd need to reknit the cuff on larger needles. To make it work for her, I'd need to rip all the way back to the cuff and then add leg shaping to drastically reduce the number of stitches from the cuff on down. And shorten the foot by about an inch too. Both options pretty much mean starting over and I'm just not feeling motivated. I don't think I like the pattern enough to make the effort. Instead I think I'll put this single sock in a time out and move on.

Sometimes a change is as good as a rest, and with that in mind I think I'll cast on some fingerless gloves for my transit knitting today.  I have a couple of balls of Debbie Bliss cashmerino waiting for just that purpose. Besides, the vest is too much to cart around so a new small project is in order, isn't it? That's what I'll be doing over the next couple of days. To see what a crowd of other clever crafters are up to check out the links at Tami's Amis.

FO: Daphne and Delilah II

Here's a second set of monsters for Isaida's Monster Mission of Love. My goal was to get both sets finished up this weekend and in the mail - mission accomplished! Hopefully these little darlings find new homes quickly and get down to the business of providing comfort and companionship to kids in difficult situations.

The main colour of my earlier set was Red Heart Super Saver, but this time I've used Red Heart Soft Touch with Bernat Satin. As a resulting the finished monsters are about 7% smaller. Maybe I should have expected that because the yarn does feel a bit finer, but I used the same needles and expected the gauge would be closer than that. Not that it matters in this case -  a monster is a monster, big or bigger. One thing though, knit in softer yarn, the pocket on Daphne sags a bit. The sturdier RHSS actually makes a better pocket.

They're quite addictive, these little softies. With the completion of this second set I've knit through a fair chunk of the worsted acrylic yarn in my stash. What remains fits in a shoebox. But I bet I could squeak out a few more monsters. Now I just need to find a reason to knit Penelope the Empathetic Monster. I've already pm'ed Isaida to see if she can use a few more monsters. Any other suggestions for toy donations are welcome.

Vest update: the vest fronts are knit to the shoulders and I made a good start on the back. Well I thought it was a good start until I noticed that I had dropped a stitch at which point the vest was put aside in disgust. Tonight I'll settle myself on the sofa with the vest on my lap, take a few deep breaths and go searching for that stitch with a crochet hook and a lot of patience.

Year of Projects - Christmas in Tallinn 02

Knitting on the Road: Canada • Canal du Midi • Conwy • Dalarna • Denmark • Friday Harbor • Hiiumaa • Huron Mountain • New England • The Road to Oslo • Santa Fe • Spey Valley • Christmas in Tallinn • Traveler's Stockings • Uinta Cabin • Unst • Whitby

As it turns out a braided cuff and a multi-row colourwork band make the leg of my first Christmas in Tallinn sock quite inflexible. Both Gavin and I really struggled to get our heels and arches into the sock. And then struggled to pull the sock off again. I've purposely made the foot of the sock small - the accountant at work is very petite and she's been asking for a pair of handknit socks for ages - but I hadn't meant to make the socks difficult to get in and out of. She works Tuesdays, so I'll ask her to try this sock on then. Depending on how that goes, there may or may not be a sock number two. Another idea I had was to knit the colourwork panel on larger needles to make the cuff bigger and less stiff. That might work.

The subtlety of the dark variegated yarn still disappoints except from very close up. Maybe a yarn that wasn't so dark would have been a better choice? The main coloured yarn is a new one to me - Sandnes Garn Sisu - and it's left me disappointed. It's very splitty. Very. And I encountered more slubs and unevenness in yarn texture than I expected. Other Ravelers comment that it's soft and hard-wearing so maybe it will redeem itself in my opinion over time.

Enough complaining; let's focus on the positive. Spring has definitely arrived around here - my tulips and lilies are up and my crocuses are blooming. All the trees and shrubs have buds. We've seen lots of robins and red-winged blackbirds at the backyard feeders. And a pair of rock doves are nesting in a wall mounted planter at our front door. So far mama dove has been serene and unflappable with all the comings and goings on our porch - hopefully that doesn't change once there are eggs and the little ones. Can't wait to see that!

it's not a vest

It's kind of you not to mention the fact that this is quite obviously not a photo of the vest I've been working on. Don't worry, there's no problem there; it's just going more slowly than I predicted. The right front is knit, the left front is in progress, and I suspect that the back, the neckband and the armhole bands will take the rest of the weekend to complete. Or maybe even longer than that. I'm absolutely dreading the "pick up stitches evenly" steps to create those bands - that's make or break in terms of how polished the finish vest looks, isn't it?

Rather than confront that challenge, I seem to be indulging in some typical procrastination behaviour: creating a small distraction for myself. I've started a smaller, simpler project - another set of monsters -  that I know I can complete in a couple of days without much effort. Based on my experience of last week with this pattern, I'm confident I'll be satisfied with the result so there's no anxiety there. And I've got a series of justifications ready if you want to hear them: it's stash-busting, I can ship'em with those I finished last week, it's for a good cause, I was too tired to give the vest decreases the attention they needed ...

Enough excuses, it's time to overcome all this procrastination and push ahead on the vest... as soon as I finish these little monsters. I promise.

work in progress Wednesday

According to the five-day forecast our early glimpse of summer will end shortly and we'll be back in vest-wearing temperatures by Friday in Toronto. My goal then is to finish the vest by the weekend - that might be overly optimistic though. I've knit the body of the vest and am now working on the left front between the armhole and the neckline. But this is the tricky part because now I have to work back and forth in the established pattern while managing a complicated schedule of decreases at both ends of the needle. It's so easy to mess this up; I need to really pay attention to what I'm doing now. No more knitting with distractions until this is done, however long it takes.

Now that the right front and the back stitches are on waste yarn I was able to try it on. It fits quite generously. In fact I probably could have gone down a size, but I'm okay with the loose fit. I chose the tunic length to knit and that looks perfect - the bottom sits low on my hips which is just what I wanted. Seeing it on was quite a relief because I had a lot of doubts as I was knitting ... you know that feeling of dread that after knitting many hours and hundreds of yards the thing won't fit and you'll be ripping out and starting over? Reminds me of why I so seldom knit garments for myself. Anyway, dodged that bullet so far!

As always on Wednesday there's a link party at Tami's Amis where you can see an amazing range of projects and progress. Be sure to check them out!

FO: Daphne and Delilah

Late yesterday afternoon I had a bit of time to work on my monster project; that's all the time I needed to complete the little monster and all the finishing. The pattern is Daphne and Delilah from Danger Crafts. It's priced at $6 US -  a bit steep considering the simplicity of the pattern -  but it's darn cute and I'll get my money's worth if I make a few more. The nice thing is that you can knit whatever size at whatever gauge with whatever yarn you have on hand. That's great for stash-busting! I'm already looking through my remaining stash of acrylic worsted to plan my next monsters.

I'm very happy (relieved?) at how well the finishing went. Three needle bind-offs at the tops of the monster provide a tidy seam. Picking up the stitches for the front pocket proved easier than I had feared. And it looks like I'm actually getting the hang of mattress stitch which I used to close up the crotch areas. Those little monster mouths were the most challenging. Turns out felt is quite difficult to cut. Who knew? I gave up on free-handing them with scissors and instead created illustrator templates on the computer which Gavin cut from felt with an olfa knife on a cutting mat.

We spent most of yesterday at the Home Show and Canada Blooms but overall I was a disappointed. The garden plantings shown mainly featured spring bulbs and some roses - my local garden centres show a better variety of plants. And there was nothing very interesting about garden hardscaping or construction either except one booth showing hugely expensive tiered garden boxes that were quite attractive. Well, at that price they'd have to be! Lesson learned: I'll save my time and money for craft shows.