Done!!

The shawl - the purple monster- is done, blocked, and nicely wrapped in tissue paper and stored away for Christmas wrapping. I finished knitting it on Thursday and blocked it Thursday night (I left it soaking while I chatted on the phone... there was no water left in the sink when I got back!! NTS- wool is absorbant, if you don't want to be wringing water out of lace for hours don't abandon it in the sink....). I had to fold it in half to block it and then it only just fit on the towel/foam mats combo that I wanted to use.

Yesterday I started on my mitten blitz. I'm doing three pairs for my sibs - not really that big of a deal. But naturally I decided to try stranded colour work (which I rarely do and never do well) and that I wanted to do Norwegian style stars on them. Unfortunately the only patterns I have are for adults (one pair is for a 7 year old girl and one for a 3 year old boy - adult sizes not so much). So generic mitten pattern to the rescue... sort of... I used the template to create a scaled down template in excel and then did the design on that. Then I tried knitting it, first version too small... even for Bertie, so I frogged back to the ribbing and knit again using larger needles, which seems to have worked.

Last night, for some variety, I cast on the tea-cozy. The pattern was great, very easy, and I finished it last night before I went to bed. I really liked the picot hem, I've never done a hem before but this was easy and very smart looking. I think I may modify the pattern in future to make a toque.

Today, more mittens, and maybe working on the socks. Phineas is going slow, the needles are tiny!! So I've been leaving it to the side in favour of projects with greater instant gratification potential. I'm thinking maybe I'll cast on the Hedera for mom....

In my last KP order (which I was waiting for for my mitten yarn and sock needles) I also got the set of metal options. I have loved them, I actually knit the tea cozy on two cables and one set of 5mm tips (I had to switch tips at the end of each half row, but it worked really well anyway). I'm going to have to get more tips (and some doubles I think) and more storage and cables.... (obsessive compulsive much ....) I also got the Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning book. I really like it, though to my mind there is too much attention devoted to spinning novelty yarn. I'd have liked more space given to non-wool fibers (like bamboo), though I did like the sections on flax and silk, and to the properties of different fibers in general. The result has been, the plying of two spindles of singles that I had and pricing spinning wheels. Oh, how I want a Kromski Symphony...

*pout* My connection is being stupid so I can't upload pictures right now...