Knitter's Block

Do you ever get it? Lots of yarn, plenty of patterns but no inspiration...I was on the verge of resorting to some striped potholders Sunday when I found these Elf Hats from Handknit Holidays. They're a super quick project and have just the right amount of whimsy.



Brad and I decided to spare you the spectacle of modeled shots. These will be for the ski slopes...you always need a silly hat for a ski day.

Saturday was a fun day spent at London-Wul taking a drop spindle class. Tanya organized lunch beforehand so I finally got to meet a fellow blogger and the rest of the Moncton crowd. A great group of girls! I forgot my camera but Tanya has some posted on her blog and she's also been spinning up a storm!!



The class was great - I was a little slow to catch on but managed to spin up a bit of something resembling yarn by the time it was over.

And, of course, I'm completely hooked. I bought a bit of fibre to practise with although I'm a bit worried about how to deal with the color so that I end up with something pretty and not a brown muddle.

This is some merino/silk...



And this is a bag of polworth...wish me luck!



Project Details:
Pattern: Elf Hats from Handknit HOliday
Yarn: Briggs & Little Super 100% wool (1 ball each light grey, dark maroon and pink)
Needles: 8mm circ and DPNs
Comments: My yarn did not match the gauge specified in the pattern so I had to upsize Brad's hat by 8 stitches or 2 sizes (he's got a large head) and I also started decreases on the hats 1-1.5 inches earlier than stated in the pattern to accomodate the extra decreases due to resizing and also to accomodate difference in row gauge.

Kitten Mittens

Eunny's Anemoi mittens make me happy. I love these. They're baby alpaca so I've re-christened them the "kitten mittens" cause I seriously feel like I'm walking around with a couple of kittens keeping my fingers toasty.



These have not been blocked - they went straight from the needles to my hands so I guess they're just going to have to block with wear cause they ain't coming off.



Anyone who is thinking about making these - I say go for it! They're a great fitting pair of mittens and I really enjoyed the non-repetitive chart - wouldn't want everything I knit to be non-repetitive but it was kind of like making a puzzle or something. If you like that kind of thing (and I sure do), you'll enjoy this project.



And they were finished just in time cause someone rilly, rilly, rilly wants to go play in the snow!



Project Details:
Pattern: Eunny's Anemoi Mittens I made the size Small.
Yarn: 100% alpaca bought at Cricket Cove - 1 skein of chocolate/1 skein of cream with enough left over for a child's hat or mittens
Needles: The recommended 2mm and 2.25mm.
Comments: Absolutely love these - one of my favorite projects. Not sure how well the alpaca will hold up with a lot of wear but the warmth and softness are a huge bonus. One issue I had was that I used the recommended 2mm needles for the first cuff and found it was too tight (I can barely get it over my knuckles. On the second mitten, I used the larger needles for the cuff and it was a much better fit - this may have been due to the yarn I was working with or the tightness of my ribbing.

Petites Mitaines

A friend of mine recently had a baby and I've been quite negligent with the knits what with Xmas and all so I finally cast on some little mittens for her.



The stitch pattern is either fleur-de-lis or peeled banana depending on your perspective...



I decided to go with the thumb-less, corded version rather than the usual cuff mainly because it looked more feminine and also babies don't need thumbs on their mittens anyway, right?



I hope they keep this little one cute and cozy this winter!!

Project Specs:
Pattern: Petites Mitaines en Fleur-de-lis from Favorite Mittens in the 0-6mos size
Yarn: Knit Picks Palette - same colors I used on my latvian mittens back in Dec.
Needles: Bamboo 2mm DPNs
Comments: This was a fun and quick knit. Not having to knit thumbs made this much less finicky than it could have been - to be honest the worst part was having to knit the little i-cord ties! I would definitely turn out another pair of these in future.

The Pool's Fine...

I did one last London Wul lace scarf last week...this was actually a reknit of some HandMaiden Cashmere (Devon's Touque Kit) that I had knit into a skinny scarf last year. I found the skinny scarf curled too much and didn't want to "waste" cashmere so I actually knit right from one scarf to the other rather than ripping and reknitting. Blocking took care of any kinks...



Ordinarily pooling would be an issue for me but in the case of this scarf/yarn, the pooling actually worked itself into a zigzag pattern and didn't bother me all.



Can you believe it's January in the Maritimes and we've got no snow? It's actually raining out today. I quite enjoy winter snow so although I know a lot of people are probably appreciating the mild weather, I'd like for things to get back to normal. The ski hills are a mess at the moment. :-(



My next project is a pair of Eunny's Anemoi Mittens. Love these. I'm using a chocolate brown and a beige 100% alpaca. It's a bit splitty but is so so soft.



I would normally use 5 DPNs for a project like this but I didn't have any bamboo in the appropriate size and found the metal needles too heavy - they were really distorting the join stitches. So I switched to 2 circs - unfortunately one of them has a rough join so I'm having all kinds of equipment troubles on this project. Will be so worth it though...