This one's for The Kat!

My dear friend kmkat has been waiting patiently (and waiting and waiting and waiting some more) for me to do a knitting post.  Because I love her dearly and because it's totally her fault anyway (check the third link), here it is.
I saw these mitts and fell madly in love.  Gotta have 'em.  Just gotta.
Of course, I had to modify the pattern right off the bat.  Because that's what I do.  Why do anything the easy way when I can complicate it?
My preferred cast on for starting with a k1p1 ribbing is a tubular cast on.  I work it flat for the first couple of rows (and here I've cast on with contrasting color 2, just for grins)

and then when I'm ready to join to knit in the round, I don't have to worry about twisting my work because it's so honkin' obvious if I do.  Hurray for no twist!  (Been there, done that, got a dozen t-shirts.)

I'm not really very far yet, but words have appeared.  The Labyrinth itself will be starting on the next row.

And I've got the perfect thing to watch while I knit.

Amazon had it on sale.  I had a gift certificate.  My old copy of this movie currently lives with one of my daughters.  My path was obvious - not labyrinthine at all...

Diamond Thrummed Mittens pattern

A dedicated post just for the mittens...
Until I figure out how to host a pdf (I'm trying to figure out how to do it on Ravelry right now...),
email me or leave a comment, and I'll send you the pattern.

ETA: I think I've got it: a Rav link for a free download. Diamond Thrummed Mittens

Flighty and unfocused. So what else is new?

Habit-kicking is kicking my ass. I'm so happy to be hearing from former smokers - ya'll are giving me hope that I won't feel this crazy forever...

So, since I'm feeling remarkably random anyway, here's a remarkably random post.

Random 1: An interesting fact we learned over the winter: basil will root from stem-cuttings. I dug up and brought in the last surviving basil plant last fall. It got pretty rangy and leggy over the winter, and I was afraid that I would have to pitch it out (after plucking it of its few leaves. Not enough for pesto, but enough to graze on...) Then we read that basil was rootable. Had to try it!

The plant had three branches - we cut one off, stuck it in water and waited. Sure enough, roots appeared. We potted it up, then amputated the other two branches and popped them into the water.(Note to self: wash kitchen window.)
On the left is the pot containing the original plant (the stem briefly showed signs of growing new leaves, but they dried up before getting more than 1/8 in) In the middle is the first branch we rooted, growing happily in its own pot. On the right in the red vase are the two other branches, rooting away. We'll pot them up shortly and have plants to set out in the garden once all danger of frost is gone. (Which is June, up here. Damn this Zone 3.)
Since we have time, we may even chop up that first plant and start even more plants. We've always had a hard time growing enough basil - we may have stumbled on a system for growing these tender little plants!



Random 2 - I finally finished (I hope) the pattern for the thrummed mittens. I've got it in PDF form, but don't know yet if I can put that up on a photo site (Like Picasa or Flickr). So, in the meantime, anyone who wants it, please leave a comment or email me, and I'll send you a copy. I'm particularly hoping to get some test-knitters who can give me feedback. I'm used to just dashing down a couple of notes on the back of an envelope and winging it from there, so any help you can give me on writing an actual pattern will be deeply appreciated!

Random 3 - still trying, but had a setback yesterday. Had the Customer From Hell at work. He ranted and raved and swore and stomped and was Generally Unpleasant (a euphemism for Total Asshole), and all because he couldn't understand that the "Store Credit Card" (which he didn't have) and the receipt for the Store Credit Card (which he had) weren't the same thing. He expected us to give him a $50 credit with only a receipt, but not the actual plastic card that the money had been scanned on to. When we (the asst manager and I) tried to explain it to him "It's like buying a gift certificate - the gift certificate is redeemable for merchandise, the receipt for the gift certificate is not", he started screaming about what rude f-ing bitches we were being and that he wasn't a f-ing sleazebag and we could cram that f-ing store policy up our asses and this was a f-ed up store with f-ed up merchandise and this f-ed up store must be f-ing proud that rude bitches like us were out there f-ing over the customers, etc, etc, etc. All at the top of his lungs. He finally made his purchase and left, still shouting and throwing things, and generally behaving like a homicidal 5yr-old.
I was so rattled I ended up outside, smoking 1/2 a cigarette, hands shaking and trying not to cry. Really really didn't need that kind of stress when I was feeling particularly vulnerable to stress anyway.

Random 4: There is no Random 4.

Random 5: I'm on row 5 of Maplewing. Step by step, inch by inch...

Progress (sort of)

So, after much head-bashing, I've got charts that fit on a page, I've figured out how to add them to a text document, and I've started typing up instructions. At this rate, I should have this damn pattern ready sometime before summer... Fall, at the latest.
How about if everybody just comes to my house, and I'll teach the mitten, instead? It would be easier on all of us, I think. I make pretty good coffee.
BYOB, though.

Still spinning, still knitting, still griping about the snow

That says it all.

I've started the second bobbin of the purple roving. I'm trying to just spin in short intervals, since I've been not spinning for so long. My back muscles on my right side bother me if I do too much too fast (which is what I want to do. It's really hard to stop and step away from the wheel. Love. This. Color.) It's the same set of muscles that used to bother me when I was working as a florist - especially if I was doing something fiddly like making a lot of corsages for a wedding. I'd end up with muscle pain for days. I think I tense my right shoulder, and the tension just echoes down through the muscles of my back.

Still working on the thrummed mitten, too. The chart looks like it's right (so far so good!) - it's not a perfect match to the #1 mitten, but it's what I had actually intended in the first place, so it's all working out for the best. I need to tinker with the chart a bit, though, to get it down to a reasonable size. It's still bleeding over onto another sheet of paper, so I'm trying to beat it into submission make it a little more printer-friendly.

And as for cussing the snow? That's pretty much non-stop this time of year. I want Spring, dammit! Not another 12 freakin' inches of freakin' snow. Which has been falling sideways all day.

I hate that.
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I Spun!

I spun for 10 minutes. I've been missing the spinning bigtime - I made myself stop back in November to force myself to work on the holiday knitting - but it's been so long that I was having a hard time getting going again.
Ten minutes a day. I can do that.

Here's a closeup of the roving. The color is more true on the bobbin above, but this pic shows the lovely striations of color in this roving. I was at the LYS a while back and spied this on the shelf. I only picked it up to look closer at the color. I swear. Seriously. But when the time came to set it back down, I couldn't make my hand open to release it. My fingers had a will of their own - Not. Letting. Go.

So, I took it home with me. Clearly, what other choice did I have? It was either buy the roving, or amputate my hand...
I fell asleep in the middle of casting on for the thrummed mitten last night. Madman would have taken my picture if he could have found the camera. Proof that I really am trying to knit in my sleep. I finished the cast-on this morning and will be able to get a few rows in before I have to head in to work.

I haven't put up any chicken pictures lately - but here's a view from our deck out to the chicken coop. And we've had another foot of snow since this picture was taken.
I am so sick of winter...

Holy Crap, we have achieved chart!

After copious amounts of head-thudding, I finally managed to persuade a spreadsheet to show what I want. It's too big to fit on one page, and refuses to print in landscape mode, but at least the thumb is in the right place and it's roughly mitten-shaped with the pointy bit at the top where it belongs.
*sigh*
Now to attempt knitting from it. If that works, I'll share.
If not, it's back to the head pounding. At least I've gotten good at that.

Still no chart. Though I now have some interesting lumps on my head...

I've gotta take a break from this charting madness. I could just do this so easily with a sheet of graph paper and a felt-tip marker... Why, oh, why isn't it just as simple to do it in a post-able format?
I knew I wasn't going to like the 21st century.

In the meantime, I've been looking at pretty pictures here. Love Drops Designs (Garnstudio) - more fabulous patterns than you can shake a circular at! I started out looking for a pattern for a vest; I've got some lovely yarn that was Christmassed at me and a vest seemed like a good plan.
Then, of course, I got distracted. I found this slipper pattern - and I am seriously in love! I don't actually need another pair of slippers, but I won't let that stop me from making another pair of slippers. It's all about the process, after all.
And while I was peeking around, I found what might be the perfect pattern for my handspun Cotswold.
Cardigan? Check. Simple lines? Check. Classic style? Check. Gauge matches my swatch? Check. Go check it out! (Is it okay to post their photo here? I don't know the rules...)

Charts 'R Not Us

Spent the whole afternoon trying to cobble together a chart for the thrummed mittens. It's a wonder that designers don't ask 80 kabillion dollars for a pattern...
I'm sure I was doing it the hard way. (Is there any other way?) And I'm also sure there's some geewhiz-spiffy software out there that would make my life 100 percent easier, but since I can't afford it anyway, I'll have to stick with the slamming-my-head-on-the-desk-using-Paint system for at least a while.

Hey, look... Tiny image. Go figure.
*sigh*

I'll try that trick again with a .png file this time.
Hallelujah! That's a little better...

On the plus side of life, I have homemade pizza in progress for supper. At least there'll be one positive thing about my day!
.
(ETA: *facepalm* I just realized there's an error in the top of the chart. *sigh* )

One warm hand, anyway...

Step by step, inch by inch...

Here's an inside view of the thrummy goodness. I pulled some of the fiber aside near the top of the mitten so the backside of the colorwork shows.
And.....


Ta-da! I finished the first mitten! And you'll notice I finally got that silly little millimeter smarter and knit the left hand first so I could take a picture without swearing at myself...
World's Warmest Mittens, how I do love thee!


And so, to celebrate, I cast on my next Selbuvotter project. After much dithering (with the emphasis on the much) I finally made a choice. Annemor #8 is officially underway.

Notice the yarn barf at the bottom of the picture. Argh...

And quick question: Anyone know why I can get nice big pictures from Flickr, but my Picasa pics are little bitty? Thanks!
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Another version of the World's Warmest Mittens

This is my latest mitten endeavor. I'm knitting thrummed colorwork mittens again, this time with a much simpler pattern.

This pair is for ME!! (Yeah, it's purple. What can I say...)

I started with my new favorite tubular cast on. (For a fabulous tutorial, go here. Tech-Knitting is the best site ever. I've been knitting for more than 40 years, and I still learn new and wonderful things on that site. Browse and enjoy!) Then I knit a nice long cuff to keep the wind out, then started a simple color pattern, with thrums at all the crossroads. You can see the thumb gusset on the top right.

Speaking of thrums, Knitting Daily is running a bunch of posts on thrums at this point, though I almost fritzed out when I saw their advice on "making thrums" - they were bringing the ends in to the middle of the thrum, making a loop at each end. Now why on earth would anyone want to purposely make a bunch of fingercatchers in their mittens!?!?! Not. Good. Advice.

If anyone expresses interest, I'll chart out the pattern for these.

Well, as long as I'm in the habit...

It's been a real mitt-fest lately.
Lest anyone think I started a new pair of Selbu gloves without finishing the first ones:
Here they are! I still have to weave in a bunch of ends, but I typically have to wait for the mood to strike, then maniacally weave and weave and weave. If I try to push it, it just leads to tragedy...
I've also got these fingerless mitts going. The plan is to pick up stitches across the backs at the base of the fingers, and turn them into convertible mittens.
I knit this as a proto-type last spring. I was trying to get the ribbing on the top part to mimic the ribbing on the bottom. Though what I'm actually ending up with sort of looks like a fish...
It looks much better on my hand. (Though it would be a lot easier to model if I had finished the thumb.)


The clock is ticking down to Christmas. I'm probably going to wish I had chosen to knit hats...

The Good News and the Bad News

First, the Good News - The World's Warmest Mittens are done! Done! Done!
I worked out what I did wrong on the thumbs and fixed it. The ends are woven in, and they're ready to present to WGS.
Here's a closeup of the herringbone pattern, wonky handspun alpaca and all:
Recap:
Pattern: Elliphantom's Herringbone Mittens
Yarn: My handspun alpaca. The fleeces came from WGS's own alpacas.
Needles: size 4 DPN
Modifications: I knit a K1P1 ribbing cuff to help the mittens stay on. And the biggest mod is that I thrummed the pattern to make the mittens extra warm. (Thrums were also alpaca.)

I am so so so happy with how these turned out!


And now for the bad news... Well, first, some more good news - I've got a thumb done on the Selbuvotter gloves! I haven't finished weaving in ends, but happy progress has been made. Here are a couple of photos I took while wearing the glove. I stupidly finished the right one first, so had to take the pictures left-handed. And blind, since I couldn't hold my hand in the light and still see through the viewfinder... I took about 20 pics before I got any I could use. Though I got some fabulous shots of my wrist and my fingertips...


So, flush with this victory, I sat down to work on Thumb 2. I was happily knitting away, chatting occasionally with Madman, who was working on his plans for remodeling the chicken coop.
That little voice in the back of my head (You know the one. It always means trouble...) started going "Psst. Psst..."
I knitted harder.
"Psst!"
Crap. I sighed, and looked. And sighed.
When I got up and got the camera, Madman knew something was up. He gave me an inquiring look.
"They got me again!" I said.
"Oh, no! What now?"
"Take a look at the base of the thumbs..."


"Oh no! Does that mean you have to knit another one?"
"Absolutely not. I'm just going to pretend I don't see it."

These gloves are kicking my ass.

I might be already kicking myself...

So, after shooting off my big mouth yesterday, here I sit, after a day where by 3pm my brains had turned to pudding and were leaking out my ears and I still had to hang in there till 5pm, trying to come up with a post.

The second thrummed Herringbone mitten is still in progress. It looks remarkably like the first one did at the same age, so not much point in photographing it. (And it's too dark anyway, by now.)
I've got the pinky and ring fingers of the second Selbu glove done, and am 'roaring' up the middle finger, but, again, it looks pretty much like the first one. (Actually, thank goodness for that similarity. See this post, if you haven't been following along at home.)
I finished the male-version of Rogue that I knit for Madman (meant for his birthday. In April. Of 2007. Oops.) but given that a) it's dark and b) he's notoriously camera-shy, I have no pic for that either.

I'm starting to worry that by the 15th of November I'll be reduced to telling about the time my little brother's (clandestine) pet garter snake escaped in the house.
And by the 25th, my post will consist solely of "Um. Ummm...."

Hopefully, something outrageous and/or ridiculous will happen to me between now and November 30th.

What are the odds?

Are we tired of WWM, yet?

I finished the first mitten, sans weaving in the last of the ends, and cast on the second one. Almost missed the beginning of the thumb gusset, but made a quick recovery. Frogging thrums is a messy business at best.


Someday my spinning will be better and more consistent, I hope. Until then, I just keep practicing.

I finished the pinky on the second Selbu glove.


And cast on a third. I'm shooting for a glove that will match the first one, but I admit I'll be happy as long as it matches either of them... Two half-pairs I can bear, but THREE half-pairs would probably send me right over the edge. I'll be watching this one with great paranoia...


A friend of ours gave us some elderberries. Not enough for a batch of wine (sigh...) but enough to make a lovely elderberry buckle:
Madman liked it a lot...

For some strange reason, every time I say elderberry buckle, I hear "Buckleberry Ferry" in the back of my head.

And, last but not least, the chickens are in molt. Every fall their old feathers fall out (the inside of the chicken coop looks like the site of a chicken explosion) and new feathers grow in. The transition stages make them look pretty pathetic. With most of their feathers gone, they end up looking like lizards. With goosebumps.
Last year, they molted in November - nothing sadder than seeing a bunch of cold, shivering, half-naked chickens.

Our poor rooster has lost most of his tail feathers. Lucky for him, he has a big enough ego to convince himself he's still the best looking rooster alive.
I don't have the heart to tell him that there are a dozen roosters in the coop next door that are all prettier than he is. And all better-natured than him, too. (He has turned mean in his "old-age" and attacks us on a too-regular basis.) One of them will be chosen to be his replacement...


The really sad part about the molt is that the chickens pretty much stop laying for a month or two. We've gone from 4 eggs a day to one every other day. Since we can sell as many as we can produce, this is not good news. In another month or two, the young hens will start laying, so at least we have that to look forward to.

World's Warmest Mittens, part 4

Flying along on the Alpaca Herringbone Mitten. Nothing like lazing on the couch with a mega-cold to get some knitting done.


I need to check the chart and make sure I haven't gone past the point where the decreases start... (Not that I've done anything like that before. Uhn-uh. Not me.)
As I'm knitting these, I'm also considering a matching hat. It would be easy to cobble the herringbone pattern into panels, with a plain brown column setting off each panel.

Would a thrummed hat be Over The Top?

World's Warmest Mittens, part 3

Work continues on the thrummed alpaca mittens, albeit slowly, since my wonderful Madman has shared his cold with me...
I managed to get a few more rows worked last night, between the hacking, sneezing, and nose-blowing...The pattern would show better if my spinning wasn't quite so lumpy. I'm still having a consistency problem, especially when I'm not spinning laceweight.
Peeling back the needles to give you a view of the inside:

I'm thrumming with the alpaca fleece, too, which is harder than using wool, since alpaca just doesn't have the "grab" that wool does. But I promised WGS alpaca mittens, and alpaca mittens she shall have.
And I finally puzzled out a way (the hard way, I'm sure. Story of my life.) to chart what I'm doing. This is a chunk of Elliphantom's chart, hand-drawn at great effort by yours truly. (Feel free to comment on my Mad Charting Skilz)

The main part is just plain two-color knitting. The orange dots represent where the thrums go. I wrap the stitch normally with the white yarn, but before I pull it through, I add the thrum, then pull both through together, completing the knit stitch. On the next row, I knit the white yarn and the thrum as if they were one strand, and give the thrum a little tug from the back side to make sure it seats itself.
These mittens end up being very warm - two-color knitting is warm in and of itself, just from the extra layers of the carried yarn. Adding in the soft cozy thrums makes them even warmer.

Now I'm going to go lay down on the couch for awhile. And cough. And maybe sneeze. And maybe knit some more.

And I decided that I just didn't have the heart to frog the glove. So now I have 1/2 of two pairs. Unfinished, of course...

*sigh*

World's Warmest Mittens, part 2

So, while I'm deciding what to do about the Selbu glove, I'll start the thrummed colorwork mittens I'm making for WGS. (Wicked Good Stepmother)
Once again, I'm using Elliphantom's gorgeous Herringbone Mittens pattern, with some mods.


First, I knit a full cuff in K1P1 ribbing - these mittens are for a woman who'll be wearing them to the barn to do chores. (Note: pigs steal mittens. They also steal hats. And untie shoelaces. Pigs have a very strange sense of humor...)
And now, let the thrumming begin!


As soon as I can figure out how to chart where the thrums go, I'll put up the chart. So far I'm completely inept...

Spinning around and around

If I take time to go get the camera, take pics, upload pics, etc, I'll never get a post done. Besides, it's night and too dark to photograph brown yarn...
So, anyway.
I finished spinning a third bobbin of alpaca singles, and got them plied. I was shooting for a heavier yarn - at least a sport-weight and hopefully something close to worsted. We'll see when I wash it to set the twist. I want to make some mittens, specifically some World's Warmest Mittens. My Wicked (Good) Stepmother, who gave me the alpaca fleeces, requested thrummed mittens like I made Madman last Christmas. (Please forgive the supreme crappiness of the pics in that post - new blogger, what can I say...) I would make W(G)S anything she asked for, even if she hadn't given me alpaca fleeces...
I'll try to document the process this time. As far as I know, I'm the only one combining thrums with colorwork - but then again, EZ said we all unvent things.
In the meantime, I finally worked out a way to ply right down to the end of the singles, even with unevenly loaded bobbins. When I hit the end of bobbin 1, I broke off the single from bobbin 2 just a few inches longer. Then I overlapped the ends and squdgled them together to form a loop. By pulling the sole-surviving single through this phony loop, I was off and running with a Navaho ply. When that one ran out, I spit-spliced the single I'd broken off earlier, and woohoo - good to the last drop.
Maybe everyone else already knew this, but hey, I'm self-taught here... I enjoy my little victories!
Pics tomorrow.

World's warmest mittens

I made Elliphantom's wonderful Herringbone Mittens as a Christmas gift for my husband - with one major change... Notice how plump the mitten looks?

I thrummed it...

I'd been reading about thrummed mittens all over the place, but all of them seemed to be just rows of "dots" with the thrums showing up like the lice pattern in Scandinavian knitting. I wanted something a little more interesting to knit, so I add thrums to the charts, and came up with these.
I think they'll be the warmest mittens, ever. There's the warmth of the two-color knitting, plus all that fleece. Since Madman works outdoors a lot, warm is the way to go.

(And woohoo! Looks like I got the photos in the right place, and maybe the link will even work!!)


Update: I'm now working on another pair of these mittens - see my October '08 posts...