The light dawns

This morning I woke up waaaaay earlier then I wanted to (sidebar: why is it that I have to pull my lovely daughters out of bed at 7:20 every school morning, kicking and screaming, but on the weekends they pop out of bed of their own accord before 7:00 AM? WHY? Who have I pissed off in the godly pantheon to make this my reality? I'm really sorry, whatever I did!), and stumbled downstairs for coffee only to discover something really, really exciting.

Those right there? Real, honest-to-goodness, shadows through the skylight in the kitchen from the cherry tree in our back garden. Glory hallelujah!

Now, for many of you, shadows may not be such a big deal. But believe me, for those of us in southeastern England, it has been a loooooong time since we've seen shadows. At least shadows due to sunshine rather then lights after dark. In fact, I think the last time we had an entire day with shadows was the day I decided to wash all the handknits because spring had arrived. Hah bloody hah, weather gods.

Anyhow, the sun is out - finally - and two weeks of no experiments (the upside to having all my cells get contaminated and die - yay!) plus a daily 1000 mg of NSAIDs and a wrist splint means that my wrist has massively improved. So much so, that I finished off these lovelies last night.

Pattern: Fallberry Mitts, by the incomparable Anne Hanson of knitspot.com, published in Knitty Winter 2011.
Yarn: madeleinetosh tosh DK in "Sugarplum", less then one skein (225 yds/skein). This is the first project I've ever done in madtosh and OMG now I understand the rabid fangirls. This yarn is simply gorgeous to work with - nice twist, bouncy sproingy feel, and the colors are glorious. I may or may not be spending ludicrous amounts of time trying to decide how to justify a sweater's worth of this stuff. It is lovely.
Needles: US 2/2.75 mm bamboo double points
Start/finish: 11 April 2012 - 12 May 2012 (did the first mitt in a couple of days though, so they would have been done in a week)
Comments/mods: Disclaimer - I love Anne Hanson's patterns, both in terms of the objects she designs and the way she lays things out. This pattern was no exception - clear, concise, gorgeous pictures, the works.  I like the lack of ribbing at cuff and hand, and I also really like the stockinette thumb gussets coming out of the deeply textured hand. It's a gorgeous design.

Mods? Are you kidding? I wouldn't dare on one of Anne's patterns! They are perfect as they are.

So, the scoreboard now reads:

Weeks of more-or-less-continuous rain/grey skies: 6
Full days of sun in that period: maybe 3
Finished fingerless mitts: also 3
Likelyhood I will need fingerless mitts in the next few months: hopefully miniscule, but it's Britain so summer is really just a state of mind.
Degree of difficulty in restraining myself from knitting everything in sight and totally wrecking my wrist again: 10.0 out of 10.0

That's it - I'm off to take the children and the dog for a walk in the sun. See y'all later!

FF: (yet another) Weaving FO

An "ancient" but as yet unblogged handspun item for your Friday viewing pleasure: Boo's Overfond scarf.

Yarn: warp = handspun merino from Hello Yarn, colorway "Overfond", weft = recycled pale blue light fingering weight from a Goodwill sweater, 100% unknown wool fiber.
Start/finish: 17 January - 3 February 2012
Details: ummmm....I'd copy over my notes from my Rav project page, but I didn't leave any. Oops! But after I made Dev a scarf from her Christmas yarn, I had to make one for Boo.

Sproingy, boingy, bouncy merino at it's finest. Lovely stuff, and yet another example of how I should just trust The Adrian in All The Things Color: I was unconvinced by the colorway in top form, but adore the finished yarn.

I have made the unfortunate discovery this week that, not only should I avoid knitting like the plague, I should not spin. I managed to ignore this glaring truth long enough to spin up 8 oz of BFL/silk singles, but that will have to wait for a bath and a modeling session sometime next week before I can share. Suffice to say, it was not my best idea ever. Harumph. I do not like this situation one little bit, but I need to stop being a stubborn idiot and trying to do things before my hand has calmed down. Or else take myself off to the physio and start popping ibuprofen like candy. Ugh. Might mean a lot more weaving however...I can take care of all my Christmas gifts for the year! That's planning ahead for you.

The end of an era

Guys, you won't believe it, but check this out.

The world's my longest running UFO is now an FO. I can't even believe it.

Pattern: Sock Yarn Blanket by Shelly Kang
Needles: US 1.5/2.25 mm for squares, US 2/2.5 mm for I-cord edging
Yarn: sock yarn. Lots and lots of teeny balls of sock yarn. No earthly idea on the yardage, but I've still got a crap load left, so I'm not sure this was the ultimate stash buster I was hoping for!
Start/finish: this is where it gets impressive. I cast on for the first squares on 16 April 2008. I was originally intending to give this to Boo for Christmas in 2008. Then it was going to be for her second birthday. Then we moved and it migrated to the bottom of my laundry hamper of ongoing projects. And I tried desperately to forget about it.

Well, as I got to the end of the River Run pullover (I swear I will blog this soon!), I had a hankering for mindless garter stitch, so I pulled this out again. The last few squares didn't take all that long, and then I had to figure out how to fill in the sawtooth edges. I had grand designs on being really fancy and matching the mitering on the main squares. After much mental gymnastics I decided it was too complicated and I picked up stitches along one side of the sawtooth, and decreased/attached to the other edge on every other row. Easy peasy.

Then I picked up one stitch for each garter ridge along the edges, and worked about 3 inches of border, increasing two stitches at each corner to make a point. Then came the attached I-cord edging, which I thought would drag on forever, but actually flew by. I did a 5 stitch i-cord, which made for a nice ~0.5 inch edging.

Then came the weaving in of the ends. This thankfully coincided with my tendonitis flare up that meant I couldn't really knit, so those suckers took a couple of evenings and four episodes of "Game of Thrones".

I was going to put a fleece backing on it so I didn't have to weave in all the ends, but someone got impatient and didn't want to wait any longer. Fair enough. Final finished date: 15 April 2012. Yup, you're looking at a four year project. Seem's like maybe it should be a bit more impressive, doesn't it?

Done, dusted. Boo has named it "Colorful" and had to be distracted with TV so I could take it away for some photographs. I call that a success.

I am thrilled to be finished with it. And I love that we can spread it out and identify squares that are from yarn from socks that I've knit for the family. There's yarn from Nana socks, Grandpa socks, Mermaid and Koala socks, Uncle socks, Auntie socks, Mummy and Daddy socks, as well as handspun yarns, yarns from friends in Houston, and yarns from socks I've made since we've been in the UK. A whole (more then) four years worth of memories to keep her warm.

Devil will be getting a blanket as well, some time in the future, but it will be out of worsted weight yarn, if I have anything to say about it. It might end up being worsted weight handspun, but so be it! And my piles of sock yarn scraps are destined for some really entertaining mis-matched socks and some baby gear for upcoming sproglets (not mine). Hooray!

FF: Just in time for spring

Last week I finished up and photographed an absolutely lovely pattern - the Matanuska Eternity Scarf, created by one of my fellow Hello Yarn Fiber Club Members, Melinda Peiserich. It rocks!

It's a very simple pattern with slipped stitches, which is perfect for breaking up the stripey nature of most handspun yarn. I used 3-ply Finn in "Buckland", which was the club fiber from November 2008 (!). I loved spinning this yarn and was saving it for something really special - I had two skeins of 3-ply and one of 2-ply, so I used up all the 3-ply on this piece, a total of 472 yds.

More details:
Needles: US 6.0/4 mm
Start/finish: 3 February - 21 February (it's quick too!)

I love the colors in this yarn knitted up even more then I loved them in fiber/yarn form.

I'm particularly taken with the Bright! Chartreuse! Green! that shows up next to the richer red/brown/pink combination. I was a bit concerned that the Finn would be a bit scratchy around my neck, but it is getting softer and softer as it gets worn.

Sadly, the days for wearing it are probably numbered, as this interloper

is now wide open. Welcome to spring!

FF: Bad porpoise, no cookie

I have been very, very bad. I probably need to be punished severely. You be the judge.

You see, for the first time, I have real-live, actually-has-a-deadline, secret knitting for people other then myself that needs to be done. Two projects even. And yesterday, I had set aside a load of time to finish off one, finish writing the pattern, proofread, get things packed up for the postoffice, etc. And instead I tranformed this

into this,

and then into this.

Yet another Lacy Baktus, this one done in Spunky Eclectic Falkland in "Change", bulky weight, 108 yds, US size 13/9.0 mm needles. In my efforts to use up all the yarnz I got a little overzealous, and ran out on the decreasing end. So it's not symmetrical. Big effing deal. It's squooshy and warm, perfect for a little neck kerchief type thingie next autumn.

Now...back to the secret knitting.