More Mittens

Finally, a chance to show an unblogged project!

Pattern: Vespergyle Mittens by Elinor Brown
Yarn: Knit Picks Palette (100% Peruvian highland wool), colorways Bark (23 g) and Blue (31 g)
Needles: US 0 (2.0 mm) dpns
Started/Completed: October 20/December 5

These took me a little while because these were my designated lunch break knitting, which meant they only saw about 30-40 minues of knitting a day during the week. Add to that the fact that I'm a little slower when knitting colorwork and you can understand why they took a month and a half to finish.

The last time I knit these mittens, I used a circular and magic looped. This time around, I decided to try dpns to see how I liked them for colorwork. The answer? Not so much. I found them to be more difficult to hold, probably because I do stranded colorwork with one color in each hand, which means less fingers to hold the needles. There's also a slightly noticeable line down the middle of the mitten where the split for the needles was, but I think it'll even out with wear.

The only real glitch with these mittens is that I somehow mismeasured when I was knitting the thumbs and ended them a little soon -- so these will go into the long-term planning box for someone with stubby thumbs!

Seasonally Inappropriate

It figures that I finished a lovely pair of mittens just as the weather is getting really spring-like. That'll teach me to start a project when I'm 39 weeks pregnant!


Pattern: Vespergyle Mittens by Elinor Brown
Yarn: Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift (100% Shetland wool), colors 101/Shetland Black, 28 grams, and 274/Green Mist, 30 grams
Needles: 32" US 0 (2.0 mm) Knit Picks circs, worked magic loop
Started/Completed: December 10, 2009/April 16, 2010
Mods: none

These were a lot of fun to knit. I'd acquired the yarn from Kenny some time ago; he'd started a vest with this yarn and decided he no longer wanted it, so I benefitted from his leftovers. This was my first experience knitting with Shetland, and I quickly discovered why it's so often favored for color work. This stuff is sticky! Several times while I knit these mittens I inadvertently dropped a stitch, but because of the hairiness of the yarn, those stitches went nowhere. This is the stuff you could use for a steek that doesn't need to be reinforced before you cut.

I wouldn't say that this yarn rates among my favorites, though. It's a tad bit on the scratchy side -- enough that I wouldn't use it for anything that's meant to be worn next to sensitive skin -- and I found it to be spun rather inconsistently. And while the finished pattern looks great, this yarn doesn't have the distinctive stitch definition that I usually like.

Still, I'm quite pleased with these mittens and really enjoyed knitting them (don't let that start to completion span fool you!). When I started them, I was sure Rainbow was going to be late and I thought I'd be able to squeeze them in before she arrived, thus giving me something I could actually use during the winter. Instead, these will be packed up for next winter -- something to look forward to!

Before I go, a recent Rainbow shot, by popular demand. Here she is last weekend, expressing her pleasure in having a clean diaper and a cute outfit:

Still Snowing

I suppose my slow knitting progress isn't as bad as I thought, at least as far as the usefulness of the projects I've been working on is concerned. I was worried that by the time I finished my Vespergyle Mittens, for instance, the time for mittens would be long gone. Unfortunately, that might not be the case. We're in the middle of of the snowiest February on record here in Western Pennsylvania -- close to 40 inches already! We're also on track for the snowiest season ever as well. The record is 82 inches, and I think we're already close to 70. If I can keep up the pace on my mittens, I might just get to wear them before the snow melts. The first one is done:

I think I managed to finish the second half of the hand in a matter of days when I picked it up again, but for some reason (I think her name is Rainbow!) it took me several more weeks before I got around to doing the thumb. The second mitten is cast on and has about two rows of cuff, so I'm hoping to get in a few rows here and there when I can.

As far as spinning is concerned, I'm nearly done with four ounces of BFL that I'm spinning into laceweight singles. Up next is this beauty, 4.2 ounces of superwash merino from my favorite fiber pusher. One of the regulars on the Ravelry ASU board named this combination of colors "Goldfish Wearing a Tutu," and it caused such a stir on the board that Kristin has continued to dye up a few braids of it every now and then. I've missed many of her updates lately (mostly because I'm just not online as much as I used to be), not to mention the fact that I haven't been buying fiber, but when I happened to catch this update and saw this one braid still in the shop, I grabbed it.

Time has been flying here. Rainbow is now two months old, and I have to go back to work in a little less than a month. I'm going to miss my little one when we're not together all day -- though it will be nice to have someone else change her diapers every now and then!

Remember Me?

Why, hello there! I'm still here, though life is certainly different. Amazingly, my little peanut is four weeks old today. She's already put on a fair amount of weight and grown an inch in length, no doubt in large part due to the amount she's been eating (we're talking 8-10 feedings a day). Taking care of her doesn't allow me much free time, especially when she's fussy between feedings, but I have managed to work some fibery pursuits back into my life here and there.

I discovered very early on that I was really missing my wheel, especially because my January shipment from the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club arrived early. This is Falkland wool in a colorway called Awakenings.

I've already started spinning it up relatively thin with the plan to chain ply it to preserve the color repeats. This bump is only four ounces, but considering that I'm only managing to spin a few minutes at a time, this yarn is going to take a while to complete.

I've also managed to put in a few rows of colorwork here and there and finished the hand of my first Vespergyle Mitten:

I'm really happy with how this turned out. The thumb shouldn't take very long to complete (especially as the colorwork isn't as complicated), but I have a feeling the mate won't be finished until long after winter.

Because I'm a bit light on knitting and spinning content, will you settle for some gratuitous baby pictures?

Here's Rainbow after last night's bath, only the second time she made it through the ordeal without screaming.

And here are a couple of shots of her sleeping today, first swaddled in the bassinet ...

and then on the bed next to me right before a feeding. This is how she'll sleep if we don't swaddle her arms at her sides. Cracks me up.

And now I must run, because it sounds like someone just dirtied her diaper. Oh, the joys of motherhood!

On a Kick

After finishing my Corazon mittens, I was in the mood to knit some more colorwork mittens, so I cast on for another pair, knowing full well that they probably wouldn't get completed for quite some time. I had seen the Vespergyle Mittens on Ravelry a couple of days earlier, and I knew I had a lot of colorwork-appropriate fingering weight yarn in my stash, so it was an easy choice to make.

This is Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift that I acquired from Kenny. It's my first time working with shetland, and I can see why it's so often used for colorwork -- this stuff is sticky! I somehow dropped a stitch at some point and it literally went nowhere. I'm significantly past where this picture shows at this point (the thumb gore is almost done). I'll have to take another picture when I can get some good light to do it justice, because the pattern is really pretty.

Meanwhile, I've also been keeping myself somewhat busy with my Lady Eleanor Stole, which now has about five skeins of Noro Kureyon worked into it. Unfortunately, it's turning out a tad shorter than I expected considering I've used half of my yarn at this point. Here it is thus far, with a book for scale.

As luck would have it, the colorway I picked is now discontinued. Luckily, a bit of Googling turned up an online yarn store that still had some in stock, so three more skeins are on their way to me. I'm hoping that the extra yardage and a good blocking will result in a stole I can really wrap around myself.

Baby Watch 2009 continues. Tomorrow is my official due date, but I think it may be a while yet before Rainbow makes her grand debut.