sara skates

I’m playing!  I like this idea.  I came across it first on Cece’s blog.  I am pirating liberally from her text as I am in a rush…

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF
exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not
receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365
days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is
pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.  So, if you are
interested in receiving a handmade something from SaraSkates, leave a comment. The first three will receive something………..knitted, sewn, food? Who knows?

I have finished a long-languishing set of FuzzyFeet (knit giant slippers out of two strands of Cascade 220, shrink the heck out of it to felt them into my size).  They have been nearly done for quite some time, and then a trade opportunity came up for the Cascade 220 for some Kauni yarn, and I jumped at the oppotunity to finish a WIP and trade for something I have plans for (details to come).

KitKatKnit is having a contest – blog about what you were knitting a year ago, and post the link to her blog in the comments. You have to be old though – I’m pretty sure I qualify   I spent 5 of my growing up years living out of the country so have large cultural knowledge holes when it comes to TV – but technically I was old enough LOL.

A year ago, I was finishing up a gift sweater which involved some steeking to fix a mis-count on where I had put the neckline – changing it from a V-neck to a U-neck with a band.  I was also just starting Poppy, which egads, I am finally getting around to finishing right now.  I have about 2/3 of the second sleeve done – then some minimal sewing and a finish around the collar I believe.  I would be done with the sleeve now except that it took me not 1, not 2, not 3, but FOUR tries to get the second sleeve to be the right number of stitches (the third time, I got a good 4 inches up before I realized i had cast on at least 10 too few stitches – the sleeve was 2 inches smaller in circumference than sleeve #1).  And, on this try of the sleeve, I knit an extra two inches following the pattern rather than the mods I had done to sleeve #1 – so rip the two inches I did.  I’m one inch back through those….and making steady if not slow progress.

It’s totally time to finish Poppy IMO!

Toby noted this morning while I was donning his lobster mitts that "Mama, they don’t look like knitting because they don’t have all those little dots".  The mitts are made out of garter stitch, not stockinette, so there are bumps all over rather than the smooth knitted stitches.

I keep meaning to blog his forays into learning how to knit.  I sat down with him a while ago and went over the through the window, around the tree, back through the window, and off the ledge! thing with him.  He totally got it.  His fingers aren’t all that nimble and he didn’t do a lot of stitches – but he did take a break to grab a pencil and piece of paper and write down the "Rules" – those four steps, one by one, with words and pictorial representation.   Totally cracks me up.

Wonder where he got his analytic brain

I knit a hat this summer – that I really like (I have knit the pattern three times now – 2 others for gifts – knitting a pattern more than once is RARE for me) – though it came out a smidge too small for my head.

Hannah this morning was doing the leave-come back-leave – come back repeat thing this morning as it was considerably colder than she thought it was.

She grabbed the hat and was out the door before I could say a word – though she did let me snap a picture:

It fits her fabulously and it has met the 10-year-old-likes-it criterion so done deal.  It’s hers

I may knit myself another one though….it’s the "short rows pill box hat", designed by Mary Lamb, in the Homespun Handknit book (Linda Ligon, editor, from Interweave Press).  I really like the design – short row triangles do the bulk of it, then a hem edge is added and elastic inserted so it stays snug on your head.

We have had a morning frost for the last few days – Toby needed mittens this morning.  Out came the recently completed Lobster Claw Mitts:

They are totally cute.   I knit the largest size, and they fit Toby’s hands but they’re not roomy large.  However the pattern is totally easy to upsize – basically you knit two triangles and then assemble them and add a cuff.  Hannah wants a pair too – I’ll have to find some lobstery yarn in the stash.

Toby also made a highly cute Harry Potter for Halloween:


He spent much of the evening casting spells.  Including some quite potent ones at the house with 5 or 6 high school kids dressed and installed as statues on the lawn – coming to life and scaring the bejeezus out of the girls

Hannah was a "rabid bunny" which had plans of using whipped cream on the face for the rabid part, though those plans were nixed by moms.  (Partypoopers that we are.)  Ditto on the backup plan of shaving cream.
 

The candy haul is nearly consumed – though Girl Scout cookies just arrived so there’s no dearth of sugar in the house.

Apparently I am on a gift-knitting roll this year.  I finished and mailed these off a few days ago:

(click to embiggen)

They’re out of 2 oz of merino/tencel that I spun up a while ago.  I have no idea how I ended up with such long runs of color changes – I must have divided the roving in half, and then plied each half from the same end so that the color changes matched pretty closely. 

I made up the pattern up as I went along – it’s a K4/P1 rib, I knit each one from one end of the ball of yarn, and stopped when I ran out of yarn in the middle.  I did some increases for the last few inches of each mitt to accommodate forearm shape.  I added after-thought buttonhole openings for the thumb holes.  Totally simple design (no thumb gussets or half fingers) – but the color changes??  Awesome.

Misn0mer is thrilled.  Speaking of which – Second Life anyone??  I saw the CSI episode where they went in to investigate a crime that crossed between Real Life and the virtual Second Life, and signed up for a SL account while the show was airing.  It took me a few hours to figure out the basics of navigating (you can fly!) and getting my bearings.  Since then?  It’s totally cool.  Skating virtually is a hoot.  Fair warning though – it’s a time suck.