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It’s hard to believe it’s almost Christmas, isn’t it? This Saturday is the 25th, which means if you haven’t finished your gift knitting by now, there’s a good chance you’ll be up all night on the 24th, trying not to pull your hair out. I am not experiencing this stress, mostly because I’m not really celebrating any holidays this year. I’m spending Christmas and New Year’s with my boyfriend, who is Jewish and does not celebrate Christmas. Though I must say, I’m sort of feeling the lack of Christmas spirit.
Next year I think I’ll have a tree, a little table-top one, which will be the only size that will fit in our apartment next year. Perhaps I’ll wrap some gifts and make some cinnamon rolls. Spend the day in my pajamas and watch a holiday movie.
But this year, I’ll probably be eating Chinese foot and frantically trying to finish the billion trade and commission knits I have. Not to mention this:
(Sorry for the crappy flash picture. I may or may not have woken up this afternoon at three.)
It’s a muchly-finished sweater that was intended as a birthday gift to my boyfriend. We agreed to exchange gifts when I came to visit over Christmas so I had a couple extra weeks to finish it (his birthday was Dec. 9), but now I’ve run out of yarn and Knit Picks doesn’t appear to be selling that color. I’ve put in a desperate request to the ISO forums on Ravelry, but if any of my readers have some extra Comfy Bulky in Planetarium, PLEASE let me know.
I’ve also been working on this:
It’s one almost finished Kitty Hawk mitt for a WWFY swap. I started it because I was sick of shark mittens, but a nearly elbow-length glove in fingering weight yarn takes FOREVER. I’m going to finish the mitt, knit a pair of shark mittens, knit a hat, knit some more shark mittens, then perhaps knit the other mitt.
I currently have five pairs of outstanding shark mittens that I have to knit. So yes, I’ll be knitting these ittens forever.
I finished the first item for my latest WWFY swap, a pair of socks:
Pattern: Monkey
Yarn: Sanguine Gryffon, Bugga! One skein in Metallic Fly
Needles: US 1, two at a time magic loop
Mods: Regular rib instead of twisted rib cause I hate knitting twisted rib
These would have been done a lot more quickly if I hadn’t had to knit so many damn shark mittens. Not that I mind the profit, I just also like knitting socks. I have a bunch more things to knit for this person and also a bunch more shark mittens. So yeah.
But about the socks. I like ’em. They’re too big for me, but they’re not for me and the recipient has larger feet than me, so that’s good. The yarn is wonderful. Soft and squooshy, as a yarn with cashmere in it is bound to be. And I got lots of it in return for all the knitting I’m doing. : ) I really like this particular swap, but I think I’m going to take a break from swapping after I finish everything. There are things I’d like to knit for me.
But socks. I like those.
So I’ve been accidentally radio silent for a bit. In my defense, it was finals weeks. Which is now over! Now I am officially free on winter break, which is full of TV watching and knitting and reading and generally bumming around. HELL YES. Which means I’ve had time to finish a thing that isn’t a pair of shark mittens:
Pattern: My own, but I might write it up cause it’s bitchin’.
Yarn: Some fluffy acrylic nonsense plus white acrylic and black cotton.
Needles: US 6/4 mm
Sorry for the crappy pictures. The view from my window today is this. It’s been raining since last night.
I made this hat on commission for a friend to give as a Christmas present to a friend of hers that really likes foxes. It’s based on this hat from Urban Outfitters. I think I did a pretty good job at copying it.
I really like how this hat came out. The floats where I changed colors are just a liiiiittle tight, but it’s totally still wearable. The fluffy yarn worked out perfectly, and I think the hat looks just like a fox. The yarn I used is a lighter orange than the UO hat, but I think foxes are actually pretty orange, so I made a good color choice.
The earflaps are in acrylic as well (the recipient has a wool allergy), so after I knit them, they were really curly and stiff and unpleasant looking. I took a change and brought out my iron and steam blocked the whole hat. As you can tell by the pictures, it worked out SO WELL. Seriously, why didn’t anyone ever tell me how magical steam blocking acrylic is? It’s much softer, lies flat, and the stitching is much looser, like a commercial knit. WONDERFUL.
So I daresay my friend’s friend will enjoy her Christmas present. I certainly had fun knitting it. : )
In other knitting news: I am still making shark mittens. So there’s that.
So, uh, sorry for the radio silence, people. It’s finals week, which means last week was hell week, during which all of the last minute homework and projects professors assign is due. So yeah. But I have been knitting. I’ve started a pair of socks for a WWFY trade:
And I’m knitting a hat for a commission from a friend:
And of course I’m knitting eighty six bajillion pairs of shark mittens.
At least winter break starts next week.
So remember how I went to that craft fair like… a week ago? The delay in posting is due to finals week being next week, so I am currently drowning in both schoolwork and shark mitten orders.
Anyway, I didn’t really take any pictures (I feel weird taking pictures at that sort of thing) and it was kind of small, but I had fun. There were mostly jewelry vendors as these things tend to be, but there were also some people with sewn things, a soap/stuff vendor, and someone selling yarn. I didn’t buy much, but I did buy some honeysuckle scented soap and some yarn:
Pretty pretty sock yarn from Wild Hare Fiber Studio. The colorway is called “Peacock Strut” which is just so right. Pretty. The Wild Hare booth was one of the first booths I saw, and I spotted that yarn and decided it would be mine before I left (though I bought it near the end).
In other news, I have finally started my last pair of adult shark mittens (though I recently got an order for some baby ones). I’m going to relist the mittens on Friday, but I hope there’s at least a bit of a break so I can work on some WWFY stuff.
So… I sort of fell of the NaBloPoMo bandwagon. Well, I tried anyway. And I did pretty well, I think. I posted most days, and I would have posted more often but I had trouble getting photos during the daylight, especially over Thanksgiving break.
Anyway, the third item of my OliviaGoddess WWFY trade finished drying over break and I finally mailed everything off:
Pattern: Cloud Bolero
Yarn: Claudia Handpainted and CEY Jil Eaton Minnow Merino
Needles: Big. Whatever the pattern calls for.
Mods: None. Made the XS.
This came out well but HOLY HELL is the pattern difficult to follow. It’s confusing and jumbled and really difficult to decipher. I’m pretty sure the only reason I could do it was because I made Liesl first (which is very similar). I considered just making a shrug out of Liesl, but OliviaGoddess said Cloud, so Cloud I made.
As for the yarn: The Claudia Handpainted (the variagated) is lovely, wonderful, dense merino. Like the best handspun and also gorgeous. LOVE. It’s hella expensive and it will never grace my fingers again, but damn is it pretty. The other stuff, the Classic Elite on the bottom, is okay. It’s a pretty basic wool single, though a bit too fuzzy for my taste.
So yeah. So much for NaBloPoMo. BUT: The future: more shark mittens (three more pairs by Friday), maybe some socks, HOPEFULLY a sweater for the boyfriend for Christmas.
Christ. It’s finals week next week and I have a ton of knitting to do. Good thing I only have two finals.
So I made some more shark mittens:
I did tell you you were going to see a lot of them. These are made in acrylic though, as the customer has a wool sensitivity. I have another wool pair knit in pieces (mittens with fins and unblocked mouths) and I’m currently to the beginning of the thumb gusset in another pair. And then I have another pair after that. And two people who want to be alerted when I relist the pattern.
Gonna need to order some more Cascade Eco.
So… I made some shark mittens.
Shark Mittens, Cascade Eco and Valley Yarns Northampton, six 6/4 mm needles. Two at a time magic loop.
In the last week or so, I’ve gotten five orders for shark mittens (one person for two pairs!). Expect to see them a fair amount over the next week or two. Sorry. (Not really.)
Sneaking in a picture-less post under the wire to accomplish another day of NaBloPoMo.
Today was spent at the Manassas/Prince William County Fairgrounds for the Holiday Fair. There were lots of people dressed up in Renaissance garb (I was basically the only one NOT in garb; I was wearing jeans and a long sleeved shirt), tons of vendors, and lots of lovely things to buy.
I was pleased that there were several fibery vendors, including Unplanned Peacock. They had a TON of yarn (almost all of which was basically out of my price range). I splurged on a nice skein of sock yarn (pictures tomorrow).
At a different both, I bought a hank of really nice alpaca yarn (sport weight two-ply for FIVE DOLLARS) and at another booth, I bought two silk caps to spin. I’ve never spun silk before so it should be… an experience. I also bought a floofy skirt and some knee socks (pictures of all these tomorrow, as I said).
I also got basically a bajillion orders for shark mittens over the last couple of days, so I’ll be knitting them until I die.
FINALLY, here’s a post for the second of three (the Aviatrix hat and Cloud Bolero) items for OliviaGoddess on Ravelry.
Pattern: Improvisation
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm, two at a time magic loop
Mods: None.
So these are cute little mitts and they’re REALLY stretchy. The yarn is soft and I am a little sad I don’t get to keep them, but a pair of fingerless gloves are on my list of things to make for myself when I get the chance. There’s not really a whole lot to say about the mitts, other than you might want to knit more than an inch before knitting back and forth for the thumb hole. Also I prefer gusseted thumbs. And thumb covering bits (you know, instead of just a hole).
But let me talk about these photos. It gets dark so early that I haven’t had time while it’s still light out to wrangle my boyfriend into taking pictures for me. Fed up with it, I finally just did it myself.
But you’ll notice how I have both hands in the pictures. I didn’t use a timer (which possibly would have been easier). I didn’t use my chin. I put the camera on the table, put my hands on the table in front of the camera, then swung my leg up on the table and pressed the shutter with my toe.
Never let it be said I’m not flexible.
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 