Month: September 2014

Sock-tober is Coming

Bonnie3 Comments

Someone cheerfully pointed out today that it’s 13 weeks til Christmas.  While I knew it was coming (the no’theast gale outside tonight is a pretty good clue) I wasn’t ready to put an actual number on it.

Several years ago I started knitting socks for my nieces and nephews for Christmas.  They were little; their feet were also little.  There were fewer of them; now there’s 9. That means 18 socks.  In 13 weeks.

My panic is beginning to subside slightly. It’s not like I’m starting from zero.  I started two at a time socks in May:

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I should probably finish them soon.

I have another pair started I’ve been working on in meetings:

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And that’s it. Not even a full pair.

My goal: finish these two pair, plus another 2 pair next month.

Bring on Sock-tober!

 

 

Easy Peasy

Bonnie2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I came across a pin that detailed a different way to make the thumb in a pair of mittens.  With nothing to lose except my least favourite part of knitting mittens (for some reason I find rows of increases frustrating) I decided to give it a try.  It is deceptively easy: knit 5 stitches with a piece of scrap yarn.

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Slip the 5 stitches back to the left needle and knit across:

 

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When you’re done the mitten, go back and pick up the stitches on the scrap yarn, pick up a couple on either side, and off you go.

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Easy peasy!  I love this technique; it’s so easy, makes a nice thumb, (and did I mention it was easy?)

 

Gauge Rage

Bonnie1 Comment

So my quest into mitten knittin’ has not been without its hiccups.  I finished one mitten and realized I wasn’t going to have enough yarn for a second, so I decided to make the thumb a different colour, and make the other the opposite.

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My niece will be 7 and it will be right up her alley.  Great plan, except that as I was knitting the second mitten, I began to notice something a bit off:

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My second mitten seemed to be a bit smaller than the first.  Surely I was mistaken, so I hauled out my trusting measuring tape:

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Mitten #1
Mitten #2
Mitten #2

Yes, that’s a centimetre difference.  It’s noticeable.  For the record, my niece’s hands appear to be relatively the same size, so I don’t think I can pass it off as “planned.”

I confess, I’m not a gauge person.  I like to wing it.  Besides, I’m using mostly Cascade 220 Superwash, so it as long as I knit them the same, it should turn out ok. Except the purple yarn wasn’t 220 Superwash, it was Greenland. A yarn I bought on clearance. A yarn I really liked.  Or at least I did until I did a little search on Ravelry:

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It’s not worsted.  Which is what I thought it was when I bought it.

It’s Aran.  Which is different.

Apparently about a centimetre different on a pair of kids mittens.

 

 

 

 

 

Mad Hatter

Bonnie2 Comments

This summer, I have done a very limited amount of knitting. For a variety of reasons, the knitting mojo was completely gone. Eventually, it was time to start again. I realized that suddenly (finally) it was fall. Babies were coming, and birthdays, and cold weather, and I felt like knitting hats…so hats I made.

A baby hat…IMG_5462

A big sister hat:

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A birthday hat:IMG_5459

And a just-because-it’s-fall hat:

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Now, I’m still in worsted weight, but I’ve moved on to mittens. 5 birthdays = 10 mittens before Christmas.  I’m just hoping the urge to knit socks hits again soon…