Selfish knitting, part 2

Because I am insane, I decided that just before Christmas was a good time to start a KAL project for myself. So I joined Ruth's mystery KAL for a pair of gloves. Now I've made several pairs of mittens in my time, and have enjoyed them, so I thought - how bad can a pair of gloves be?

Answer: pretty freakin' bad. Rather, pretty freakin' fiddly. First there was the yarn: Botany Lace (underlined emphasis mine). Then there was the gauge: 9 sts/inch (I don't even knit socks at that gauge). Then there was the pattern: lots and lots (and lots) of twisted stitches.

I managed to get both gloves done to the end of the hand by Christmas time, but my initial plans of having these be a gift was thwarted by lack of fingers. So after New Year's I started in on the fingers.

Holy Fucking Fiddly Batman. To be absolutely fair, my hatred of glove knitting has nothing to do with Ruth or her fabulous pattern. It can be totally blamed on the fact that I am, in the best of times, only slightly more coordinated then an octopus trying to conduct an orchestra. So I sat on my parents' couch, with wooden dpns sticking every which way at dangerous angles, growling at anyone who asked me how it was going. And that was only the first glove!

Thankfully by the time I got to the second glove, I was on my way home (hello airplane knitting!), and it seemed to go a lot smoother. I triumphantly finished the last thumb before touching down at Heathrow. Hooray!

You may be asking why it's taken me two weeks to show them off? Well, it took me a week and a half to weave in the ends one the first glove, another four days to find the project bag with the second glove, and last night to finish weaving in those ends. See? I told you it was fiddly...thankfully the finished project is gorgeous:

I promise - they look much better on, and will look much better once they've been blocked. I admit I couldn't wait to wear them, so they haven't had their spa treatment yet. And given that it was -5C this morning when I left the house, I was glad to have them - they are toasty warm!

Pattern: Butterfingers by Ruth Garcia-Alcantud
Yarn: Araucania Botany Lace, 450 yds/100 grams, about 75% of 1 skein in gorgeous purples
Needles: US 1/2.25 mm dpns/circulars for magic loop
Gauge: 9 sts/12.5 rows per inch
Start/finish: 26 Nov 2012 - 4 Jan 2013
Comments/mods: this is a lovely pattern for a lovely pair of gloves. I just have to be in the right mood to do fingers I guess. That is all.

Now, I'd like to say I'll never knit another pair of gloves again, but I've got another skein of this yarn lying around (in greens and greys - swoon!), and I am finding myself in need of a pair of gloves for running. Maybe a pair with some conductive thread in them...

Post-release bliss

I've spent the last week or so working on other people's projects. Which is to say, working on patterns that I didn't write/am not currently writing/am not planning on writing up and publishing. It's been very enjoyable!

I've been doing some spinning...

I ran out of yarn with one row and ten stitches left in the third chart of Jane's Ubiquitous Shawl, so over the weekend I spun up 8 more ounces, and last night I plied it all (in less then 2 hours - love the miniSpinner for plying!). It's now having a bit of a soak, and it should be dry by tomorrow, so I can motor on with that project.

I've been working on Ruth's Mystery KAL, a pair of gloves in Botany Lace.

I'm almost done with last week's clue on glove #2, which is good because the last clue was released this morning. I think these are going to end up as a Christmas present.

And I've been cranking along on Boo's Christmas sweater.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, she is not colorblind. She simply wants to look like a green and purple bumblebee. We had a mini-P3 reunion lunch last week, and the general consensus was "Did you talk to her about the color wheel at all??!!!"* and "You should probably do some kind of slip stitch when you change colors..."

The end result is a slip stitch color change row of which I am becoming increasingly enamoured. If I hadn't put a mental moratorium on designing projects** until after the new year, I would be starting a steeked fingering weight cardigan using this switch over. But in some more appealing colors, to be fair...maybe I can just do a bit of swatching?

* The girl is not yet six, but she has pretty definite ideas of what she wants. Color wheel, shmolor wheel. Green and purple it is.
** Note: this does not mean I'm not going to buy yarn for it. Knitpicks doesn't deliver to the UK, but they do deliver to my parents' house! Hello Christmas present to myself.

What to do when you're trying not to knit?

Trying being the operative word here...1) Finish some spinning (i.e. wash, thwack, dry)


2) Watch Game of Thrones (swoon).

3) Paint fingernails a color somewhere between purple and navy blue.


4) Do some writing.

5) Maybe a little something else on the side?

Uh oh. That there is a new design, a pair of lacy summer mitts, that I started knitting on Tuesday. They may be done before my doctor's appointment tomorrow (at which I fully expect them to say "Stop typing/knitting/using your right hand, you complete idiot!"). I hope so, cause I need to get them tested and published by the beginning of June. Thankfully they are somewhat addictive, so they knit up quick!

Things that make me smile

Two finished scarves, about to head out to their new homes in tomorrow morning's post.

An almost Britishly-ironic headline in the NY Times online Political Section (ok, this one made me laugh out loud).

One finished mitt that I couldn't put down, even though I really really need to stop knitting (my first ever Madeleinetosh and Oh My Bob is it nice).

And a kick ass, last minute spur of the moment trip to Wembley Arena on Friday night.

It's been a good weekend.

The hemp has won

So I've been working away on my Gemini, and I'm really pleased with how it's coming out. I finished the lace panel late last week and got far enough past the splitting off of the arms from the body that I could try it on and make sure the size was coming out right (hooray - it was!), and since then I've managed to get through 13 of the 15 inches I needed to do before starting the shaping.

But....(you knew there was a but coming) this yarn is really doing a number on my hands. More specifically, my right hand. I knit Continental/combined for the most part (except when casting on for some reason - why is that?), and find a lot of plant fibers tough to work with. Add to that the tumor big lump of bone deposited on the back of my hand while working as a ski patroller lo these many years ago (17 if anyone is keeping track), and the tendons running down the back of my right hand are waaaay unhappy with the hemp. Feeling no love whatsoever. Definitely not baked. Thankfully, I realized that this was becoming a serious problem yesterday and today I had a chiropractor appointment and got my wrist adjusted. Hopefully it will be feeling better soon, but I suspect I will be putting in limited time on the hemp-monster for the foreseeable future.

So this afternoon, instead of knitting, I tried washing some fleece (!). And then, because I couldn't help it, I picked up some wool yarn and started knitting some Fallberry Mitts in this lovely yarn.

I may or may not already be increasing for the gusset on the first mitt, but you'll never know the truth!