I love mittens

At least mittens for little people.

Look at the little fin - so cute!

Pattern: Nemo Mittens by Sigurlaug Eva Stefansdottir (both Ravelry links)
Yarn: KnitPicks Essential, dyed by yours truly. I used 4 gr white, 3 gr black, and ~10 gr orange (works out to approximately 19/14/46 yds respectively of fingering weight yarn)
Needles: US 1/2.00 mm
Gauge: 8 sts/11 rows per inch
Finished circumference/length: 5 inches/5.25 inches (cuff to pointy tip)
Comments/mods: The "only" modification I made was to switch yarn and needle size. The pattern calls for sport weight/size 2.5 (3.0 mm) needles for a 4-6 year old size, but I had fingering weight, so size 1 it was. I probably could have gotten away with US 2/2.75 mm ok, but this gauge will be a bit warmer perhaps.

These were so fast! Done, with fins added and ends woven in after three evenings work. Love it. I hope Boo loves them as well, although I'm not sure what she thinks about mittens...

The yarn for these was recycled from some KnitPicks Essential that I dyed for some socks for my sister-in-law about three years ago. It was my first dyeing experience, so I used Kool Aid and ended up with a range of reds, pink, and purple. I took the largest ball of leftovers (41 g of red) and overdyed it with some yellow Jacquard Acid dye in the hopes that it would end up kind of orange. Some pink (5 g) got overdyed with black. I also had a full skein of Bare waiting around, so I knew I could dye more if needed.

Soaked the yarn, and then put both into my handy dandy crock pot for the dyeing.

The pink to black went into a glass jar in the middle while the red to orange was carefully arranged around the outside.

A few hours later, they were all done. The pink-to-black transition went very well, but the red-to-orange still looked really red. I rinsed them out and discovered that the red was bleeding. Quite a bit in fact. Bleeding enough that I got a bit concerned about what Walrus' socks had done to the rest of her laundry (sorry B!). But...I rinsed until I got sick and tired of rinsing, and then hung it up to dry.

I was concerned that it was going to end up too red, but I think it's alright. The mittens are awfully cute though. So cute that I think Boo will need a matching Nemo hat...

Slogging along

I started some socks for a friend's Christmas present a few weeks ago, and they've been a tough row to hoe in several different ways.

The pattern is lovely, with lots of twisted stitches,

and the yarn is also lovely (and sparkly!), if a bit splitty at times.

But the absolute killer was the heel flap, with multiple rows of k1, ptbl...

Oh my aching wrist! I have a bone deposit on the back of my right hand that, 99% of the time, I don't even notice. (The 1% of the time I notice it is when I hit it against something and jump around turning the air blue for a few minutes because O The Pain.) However, every so often it becomes an issue. Like, oh lets say hypothetically speaking: when I get all fired up to finish a heel flap and end up totally wracking my hands doing ptbl on size 1 needles. Ooof.

Since my reckless foray into heel flapitude this weekend, my right hand/wrist have been less then happy with me, to the extent that large doses of NSAIDS seem to be in order. So in order to give it a bit of a break*, last night I cast on for the first of three parts of a present for Boo.

To say that my younger child has something of an obsession with animals would be a laughable understatement. Nemo is one of her all time faves. So I was hunting around Ravelry, and came across a free (hooray!) pattern for Nemo mittens. Originally using sport weight yarn, and sized for 4-6 years old, I'm using some left over Knit Picks Essential that I dyed (another post there), and size 1 needles. I think they'll fit. And they're using so little yarn, that I think I'll be able to bust her out a Nemo hat as well. Yee haw!

*To any normal person, a break would mean "Stop knitting you idiot!" However, the holidays are right around the corner and I Have Gifts To Make.