A New Toy and Mitten Progress

My new Knit Kit arrived in the mail today! I'm so excited to take it with me on my trip next month. With a whole day in and out of airports... I am going to need a lot of knitting.

My orange alpaca mittens are coming along nicely. One is done except for the thumb and the other is just getting started. It's so much harder knitting that second mitten. Back to work!

Back to Knitting

It's been a long time since my last post. The weather here in Fairbanks was extraordinary! We had a hot June, a cold July, and an unpredictable August. Now it is time to get back to yarn things as the first leaves turn golden and the temperatures drop.

My hands were not been idle this summer, I finished my first sweater and made more hats, scarves, and mittens than I should count. My favorites have been from the special issue of Knitscene Accessories 2012. So far I've made the God's Eye Mitts by Alexis Winslow, the Inishbofin Cowl by Heidi Todd Kozar, and I'm working on the Doe River Mittens by Alisson Haas. I am going to be ready for this winter if it's the last thing I do! :-)

A Busy Week Without Results

          This was a very busy week primarily spent starting various projects, then spending an unreasonable amount of time working on those projects, and then finally ripping them apart. I only managed to finish and keep together one project, Peony Mat by Margie Dougherty from Crochet Today!'s March/April 2012 issue (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/peony-mat).

          I did take a picture of my Ruffled Neck Kerchief by Larua Irwin (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ruffled-neck-kerchief).

           My new project which I hope to not rip out is the Moccasin Slippers by Deborah Newton from Your Knitting Life April/May 2012 (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/moccasin-slippers-2). We'll see how it goes!

Leap Day, Free Day!

Leap day is the perfect day to give away another free pattern. Temperatures here in Fairbanks, Alaska are once again dipping down into the negatives so it’s time to get back to the warm stuff . I made this cowl for myself last month to help stay warm while outside at the start of the 2012 Yukon Quest and it worked so well I want to share it with everyone!

In-cowl-nito

This super bulky cowl will keep you warm in any weather; even a -30 degree day is no match for this thick cowl.  It may also help protect your identity, once you put on a hat all anyone will ever see is your eyes!

Hook: L

Yarn: 2 skeins Lion Brand Jiffy Thick & Quick or

              approximately 168 yards of Super Bulky yarn

Supplies: 3 buttons and matching thread

                        Yarn needle

Finished Size: 7.5 inches X 24 inches

Gauge: 8sts in pattern = 4 inches

Ch 57

Row 1: Hdc in third ch from hook and in each ch across (55 hdc).

Row 2: *Fpdc in next 5 hdc, bpdc in next 5 hdc, repeat from * across.

Rows 3-5: Fpdc in all fpdc and bpdc in all bpdc.

Row 6: *Bpdc in next 5 hdc, fpdc in next 5 hdc, repeat from * across.

Rows 7-9: Fpdc in all fpdc and bpdc in all bpdc.

Row 10: *Fpdc in next 5 hdc, bpdc in next 5 hdc, repeat from * across.

Rows 11-13: Fpdc in all fpdc and bpdc in all bpdc.

Weave in ends

Sew the 3 buttons evenly along one side. (The natural holes in the fabric will be your button holes).

If you have a bit of yarn left over it looks very nice, if you have extra room in your buttons, to sew over the thread with the yarn.

Ch – chain

Hdc – half-double crochet

Fpdc – front post double crochet

Bpdc –back post double crochet

Now you can all go out in-cowl-nito and cause some Leap Day mischief! 

Long Weekends are for Knitting

         This was a very productive President’s day weekend. I finished knitting my Ruffled Neck Kerchief by Laura Irwin from Boutique Knits (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ruffled-neck-kerchief). Once you get to the color change it goes so much faster than you'd ever think.

           I even started blocking it this morning! (I always procrastinate the blocking process, it's so boring when I could be knitting something else.) I also finished my green cabled hat, but I apparently didn't think to take any pictures of it. The hat  is also currently in the blocking process.

            I even made fairly good progress on my new project, Button Flap Fingerless Mitts by Missy Angus (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/button-flap-fingerless-mitts).

All in all, a good weekend!

Back to Knitting!

           I've been obsessively knitting the Ruffled Neck Kerchief (http://www.ravelry.com/projects/mransome/ruffled-neck-kerchief) from Boutique Knits by Laura Irwin for the past week. I’m a bit further than what this picture shows but I can’t put it down any longer than it takes to write this post/make dinner. (I like to multi-task). I'm actually to the color change part. Yay! I'm really liking the lavender and brown together. 

          There’s something special about a nice easy lace pattern that you memorize quickly. You just want to do one more row, it won’t take long…several hours later…one more row then I’ll stop, I swear! It seems like a bit of a knitting black hole, but I’m loving the black hole, I can’t get enough of it. I want to keep knitting this. I want to knit something else, but I don’t mind knitting this if that’s what it takes. (I realize that most of this may not make sense, I didn’t really mean for it to. It wrote itself.) 

Back to knitting!

Happy Valentine’s Day

          I haven’t been knitting or crocheting much in the past few days. I’m burnt out after 139 hearts for Valentine’s Day to be honest. Call me crazy, but it was a lot and I hurt my thumb pushing in all the thumb tacks to hold the darn thing up. I just needed a break. I did find a home for my leftover hearts.

          I've still been working on my green hat, I think I’m ready to decrease now, but it isn’t ready to make an appearance. Today I felt inspired enough to begin working on a new project. Ruffled Neck Kerchief by Laura Irwin (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ruffled-neck-kerchief) from Boutique Knits. I’ve been staring at my yarn for ages trying to decide what to use. After much deliberation, I decided some Dale of Norway Baby Ull would be wonderfully soft and use up some of my yarn stash. Then I just had to choose a color, which is easier said than done (I have two boxes on my shelves stuffed with it).  First it was going to be dark blue and orange, then dark blue and white, and then finally I completely changed my mind and went with brown with lavender.

          I’m hoping to use straight needles for this project, not that I don’t like circular needles; I just love straight needles. I only had straight needles for many years and my collection has a lot of sentimental value to it beyond that. They live in this vase they look a bit messy, but I’m mostly blind to the mess. I like to stare at them sometime and remember all the projects I’ve knit on them. I remember knitting my first blanket on the pink size 5’s, the pillow cover I failed to make on the weird flexible green size 10’s, the many dishcloths that have come off the size 7's, and the awful scarf I made with the sticky yarn that took the paint off the tips of the size 8’s. Circular needles come and go as they break apart at the seams, but straight knitting needles, they last a lifetime. 

Happy Valentine's Day!!!