When someone very important to me told me she would be moving away, someone who had done a great deal for me over the years and for whom I have never done a damn thing, I knew I should do something nice for her. She had always admired my Ishbel, and so I thought something like that would be nice, but not exactly like it because I like variety in my crafting.

So I was looking for a small-medium sized shawl involving some lace – either all-over simple lace or just a little lace, along the lines of the Ishbel, and preferably something that would work in a lightweight sock yarn, since that’s what I had to work with. Enter Emily. Now I will straight up admit that I am not a lace knitter. I can do it fine, but it’s not my favorite thing, and I am almost never drawn to big lacy shawls. Ever. But the sideways asymmetry of this pattern really grabbed be. Knitscene did a great job shooting that shawl, in my opinion. It looks very casual and natural on the model. So many modeled shawl shots often look awkward or too magickal-fairie-dust-esque for my taste. So I grabbed some malabrigo sock and cast on.

And I fell deeply, passionately in love with the results. So much so that it made giving up the shawl even more painful than it was already going to be. The lace pattern was easy, but there were enough things happening around the edges that it kept me interested the whole time – no small feat when we’re talking about the world’s most easily distracted crafter. And then there was the blocking! Magical. (Not magickal.)

And in the end it’s taken me a month and a half total to hand over the shawl, post the pictures, and write a blog entry on it. In the end I managed it all by clenching my jaw, forcing back the tears, saying goodbye and walking away.

How could I forget! Here I was about to join the rest of the crafty internet in posting a recap/mosaic of my projects from last year, and I realized there was one left from Christmas that I never posted about! I made a pair of crocheted slippers for my mom. The pattern (Mary Jane Skimmers) is by Sylvia Schuchardt and it is pure genius.

For mom’s pair I used lion brand cotton ease (green inner sole) and sirdar spree (outer beige). The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn held double, so I doubled the lion brand, but since the spree is a bulky weight yarn I held it single and worked loosely. Some of you may recall that I’ve crocheted this pattern once before, smaller. (Related: the number of google searches for “kitten wearing shoes” that brings people to my flickr stream is truly amazing.) The pattern does require a fair amount of stitch counting, and if you’re like me and you constantly lose count you need to be able to “read” your stitches accurately. That said, this pattern might not be for the beginning crocheter, but if you stick with it it will reward you handsomely with a very structured, sturdy pair of crocheted slippers/shoes that will most definitely stay on your feet while you’re walking around the house. I absolutely LOATHE wearing slippers that constantly come off my feet. Whenever I’m at home I’m wearing slippers, and I don’t know about you, but I’m walking around the house constantly and if those things are falling off they’re going to be left behind. I know my mom is the same way, so I was really pleased to see how the shaping involved in this pattern made them look just like a pair of shoes. The top of the heel knicks in a bit, the sole is double thick (!!!), the sides are sufficiently high, and the toe/top fits snugly over the top of the foot. This pattern is a total winner. Mom sure thought so, too.

Having lived in the frigid midwest for many years now, I’m a big fan of the convertible mitten (you know – those ones with the tops that flip open so you can use your fingers – there must be a million different names for them). I used to have a pair that my mom picked up for my at an import store years and years ago. They met their demise last winter after a few years of faithful service. These mittens were hand knit out of nice wool yarn, and not only were they convertible, but they had these holes (like button holes) on each thumb so I could pop my thumbs out for extra dexterity. This was especially great whenever I was caught outside in minus a billion degrees windchill, fumbling with my keys and cursing up a storm.

Eventually those import store mittens met their demise through heavy use, and I’ve been making due with other, inferior mittens ever since then. This wasn’t a big deal until I got a smart phone. And let me tell you, yes, it is absolutely essential that I be able to text/tweet/facebook/email/gchat while I am outside – oftentimes even while I’m walking. So far this winter I’ve found myself choosing to put my bare hands out in the 5 degree air so I can do this. Rather than reflect on what this says about me as a human being, or about my priorities, I set out to remedy the problem with knitting.

Enter: the Ribbon Mittens from Spillyjane Knits.

I needed a pretty, simple mitten pattern on which I could try out my new thumb buttonhole idea. As much as I love fair isle mitten patterns, and have about a bajillion of them in my queue, I really didn’t want to deal with putting a buttonhole in a thumb featuring stranded colorwork on my first attempt. I also didn’t want to die of boredom, and, quite frankly, I want the mittens to be warm enough to be useful in a midwestern winter. The Ribbon Mittens use a colorwork technique called Estonian Roositud Inlay, which basically involves wrapping stitches, one stitch or multiple stitches at a time, in contrasting colors. Jane has a fantastic tutorial (omg fyi pdf link!) on the technique available for free on her blog. As far as colorwork goes, it’s extremely intuitive and very forgiving as far as tension is concerned, since you can just give little tugs on each wrap section to straighten things out. (Dirty dirty secret: I didn’t even swatch for the project, or practice the inlay technique beforehand. That’s how forgiving it is.) Added bonus: the color inlay on these mittens is a great way to use up scraps of yarn. Each color requires about 15 yards each. Lord knows I have a ton of wool of the andes scraps hanging around the house.

As far as the thumb button hole goes, what I did was very simple. I just knit about 3/4 of the way up my thumb, trying it on as I went, and then cast off 5 stitches on the inside of the thumb (I was working magic loop with 7 stitches on each side of the needle, so I cast off the inner 5 stitches of that half), worked around, then cast on 5 stitches using the backward loop method. Then I finished the thumb according to the pattern.

I’m pretty dang happy with the results. And I know after all my ranting and raving about my ideals for convertible mittens and phone usage what comes next may sound kind of, a little bit batshit crazy, but I gave these away. Don’t worry – the recipient is so, so worthy. They went to Carolyn, who may use her smartphone even more than I am on my own.

At long last, here are the specs on these mittens: the main color is patons classic wool, and the colorwork is done with knitpicks wool of the andes. They were knit magic loop style (as I do everything) on US3s, and they took me just over a week. This is longer than a pair of mittens would normally take me, but I was trying to take my time with the colorwork so it would look exactly right. I would never give Carolyn, as she herself is a totally stellar knitter, a pair of mittens that is less than perfect.

Next up – more gifts! end of the year recap! Happy New Year to you all, dear readers, and I’ll see you on the other side.

I have to admit, I’m kind of a selfish knitter. If I put a ton of time, money, and effort into something I want to wear it when it’s done. It’s rare that I knit something very complicated for a gift. But my friend Becki, she’s worth it. She knits herself (I taught her!), so she *gets* it. She really, really appreciates a hand knit gift. I mean, really. This winter I realized that it had been over a year since I knit her anything (this my so-called scarf!). She was overdue for a hand knit present, I tell you! So I made her these fiddlehead mittens:



I know most people may look at mittens involving colorwork AND have a separate knit liner and think it must have taken forever to knit them. Truthfully, it took me a little while from start to finish (distractions! school, life, whatever.) but the actual knitting time was surprisingly fast. A lot of this has to do with the pattern – it is incredibly well-written and really thorough without being wordy and confusing. At $5.95 for the pattern, it’s a freaking steal. I can only imagine how much work went into it, and I’m really grateful for it.



Some technical info about these mittens (or just head over to their rav page):
I knit the outside out of two colors of cascade 220. The darker color, even though it looks pretty dark in these photos, is more of a medium heathery green. (It was incredibly bright out when I went out for these pictures!) The liner is misti alpaca worsted, which worked perfectly. If anyone is looking to knit these mittens and is curious about a yarn combo, the cascade and misti worked great for me. I knit them up on US 4s, magic loop style. One really helpful tip in the pattern is that the best way to get gauge for a mitten is to just start knitting on the size needle you think will be appropriate for you (say, sizing up or down a little if you’re a tight/loose knitter) and measure your gauge when you’re a couple inches in. I cannot tell you how much frustration I went through with gauge when I was trying to write another, not as well-written mitten pattern this winter. (That pattern will remain nameless, because the internet is a small place.) This tip saved me SO much time and frustration. Gauge on a swatch is just not the same as gauge in the round with colorwork – not at ALL, at least for me.



As for the “presentation of the mittens,” I had one big issue to deal with. Becki is severely, as in deathly, allergic to cats. Now, the cats aren’t allowed to come into contact with my knitting because they really want to tear it to pieces, but we all know how it is with animals. Their hair gets eve-ry-where, and the allergens from the dander tend to float around in the air and stick to everything. I really would rather not kill Becki, so here’s what I did to de-allergen these mittens. First, I took them over to her house for blocking. I went over every inch of them with a lint roller (the masking tape kind) to get off all the hair and hopefully some allergens as well. I picked off more hair with my fingernails while holding my face about an inch away from the mittens. Then I washed them – GASP! – in really, really hot water, with actual laundry detergent. I was careful not to move them around a whole lot and they were fine. They went through several hot baths in the sink until I was sure all the soap was out. Now, in an ideal world I would have left some of that fancy allergen-reducing febreeze with Becki, but on the day I went looking for this product, which the internet says great things about, it was nowhere to be found. I left the mittens to block in her apartment, far far away from kitties. Of course, I’m a little resentful that it suddenly became 70 degrees in Chicago today, but I’m really hoping for another surprise cold snap so she can try these suckers out before next winter.

And to all, some belated Christmas presents!

So I may have bit off more than I could chew with the Christmas knitting this year. I still haven’t blogged a couple things I gave away, and there are a couple more I’m still working on. And um, I want to knit some stuff for myself, too? When is that going to happen?

Anyway, my first FO of 2009 is from another minty pattern. This is her roman earflat hat (pdf!):



As far as mods go, there’s a pretty obvious one – no earflaps. I took Minty’s advice and increased the number of rounds of straight knitting after the brim to a total of 15. I’m pleased with the look of the finished hat, but now it goes down low enough that earflaps are completely unnecessary. I may try the pattern again for myself (I’m really really in love with that squishy brim) and only do 12 or so rounds of knitting post-brim. This hat is a good size on Peto, but it was a tad loose on me, so I’ll go down a needle size in the future.

The deets are on ravelry, but here they are in brief:
The yarn is berroco pure merino DK and it feels like butter. I have serious issues putting any kind of animal fiber on my head (no idea why – I could wear a burlap scarf, but my forehead can’t handle anything even vaguely itchy) and I would really like to get some more of this for a hat for myself. I used a US5 circular needle and was done after a day or two of plane travel.



Happy new year, everyone!