Annual (After) Holiday Hectica
03 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: fingerless mittens
Tonight is a cold one. 17 degrees here in east Tennessee, with snow coming in quick, five minutes bursts. So far we have a heavy dusting, but not much more than that.
We were lucky this New Year’s eve; it was a little on the cold side, but nothing too crazy. Not like that year that we absolutely froze while watching the ball drop. And at least it was cool-ish – not at all like those 2 years where it was nearly 50 degrees at midnight. I was able to get by with jeans and a light jacket.
(Yep, that’s me and my mom – outside Mellow Mushroom in gatlinburg. We’re awesome like that. )
I’m spending time (while staying awake, keeping the fire going to combat the cold in our tiny, underground house.) reviewing this past year in knitting & spinning. I designed one new pattern, and successfully knitted only about 6 items. A fair few of those were for the holidays. But not this hat that I knitted in about 11 hours for dad:
As for those fingerless mittens I was crying about in my last post…they were bad. They got unceremoniously yanked from the needles and shoved in a dark corner of my stash reserved for small ends of skeins and 1970s acrylics. You know you were bad, dear fingerless mittens. You can just stay there for the next…uhm…however long.
(Beauty and the beast. The coffee being beautiful, and those mitts…well..you know the rest..)
I did manage to finish some giftmas gifts. Like 2 pair of mitten s- one for my 2-year-old niece, and one for my 4-year-old nephew:
And a hat for my (normally very receptive to handmade knitted items) uncle, which was quickly overshadowed by a COFFEEPOT. To be fair, the coffeepot was a Keurig, but still…
And then, once I finished with those three gifts, I got very fidgety, because I literally had nothing on the needles. So I whipped these up in 3 days.
These are my babies. I’m in love with them. The teal yarn is Stitch Nation’s Bamboo Ewe, and the Green is Moda Dea (R.I.P.) Silk N’ Wool Blend.
I wore them on New Years eve, and they kept me quite warm while headbanging and doing the chicken dance. The following picture does not include the mittens, but it was taken on new years eve, with my daddy, in a crowd of about 20,000 people.
Speaking of Gifts, I have to thank a very nice lady on Ravelry- Justnancy – who sent me 2 sets of ADDI FRICKIN’ TURBOS for a Hanukkah gift. there was also a set of hiya Hiya DPNs, in a 4″ length – just knitting fingers on gloves & mittens! How cool is that?!
And now, I have these babies (I’m sorry or the TERRIBLE picture – lighting is not so great in this house.) Which is a pair of plain(ish) socks in “Hot Socks” – which is a 75/25 virgin wool/nylon blend.
I’m calling them “Skittles” because they are in rainbow colors. They are sort of my background project right now – but they are the only thing on the needles at the moment, so I’m working (not!) diligently on them (at all).
Technically I do still have the Fair Isle Mittens of doom on the needles, but I put them down for a long winters nap (for a year or two.). I might finish them in time for the fair this year, though, just because I can (HA! Like that will happen!)
So anyway, I decided that this year I will ONLY be doing selfish knitting. I will knit what I want, for who I want, and not for any other reason besides “I want to.” I’m sick and tired of people conning me into knitting stuff for them that I get no enjoyment from. Like those fingerless mittens.
I joined a mystery sock KAL for this year, from the Knitter’s Brewing Company. I can’t afford a sock kit from them, but I can knit it from stash yarn. I’m thinking that I’ll be using that one skein of Sock Ease that I’ve had in my stash for..oh..a few years…
So, I’m going to head back to my mindless pattern downloading (free PDF’s are made of win) and waiting until about 3 AM when dad gets up to watch the fire and make sure the house stays warm. I hope you all had a happy New Year, and get your asses back to bed, don’t you have work in the morning?!
(And if you are still up and have $2 to spare, wy dont you click that little link to the right and buy my new pattern? It’s called “Dystopia” – and is for bulky yarn and size 10-10.5 needles. It’s a quick knit, and will keep you warm for the rest of the winter season. )
