Mittens and kittens

    It's been one of those weeks. Started off okay, but the end of it kind of sucked. Libby (cat) has a UTI again, but luckily the local vet was able to see her within hours of my noticing something was up (and luckily B had a ped day). They suspect she's stressed out because Nikki (the other cat) is such an asshole to her. So she's on antibiotics (a 6 week course), plus an anti-inflammatory for 5 days and a spray for the house called "Feliway" which is a pheromone and recommended for multi-cat households. I also ordered the plug-in version from Amazon. The vet also recommended a change in diet, a cat food specifically for stress-induced urinary issues. Apparently this is a thing. 

   B had a ped day on Friday, but that's because Thursday was Parent-Teacher night. My kid is *that* kid apparently. But luckily, having had a long history with the school, and B's teachers have all taught my older 3; they understand that there's obviously an underlying issue going on.  We're on a waiting list for testing, but apparently the wait can be up to 3 years. We went through the pediatrician, but we're hoping that with the school getting involved as well, the wait won't be quite so long.

On to knitting: I knit some more mitts for B using the leftover WOTA bulky.

I still have almost a full skein left. Will likely make another pair of mitts for B at some point, mittens get lost so easily at school...and I'll probably make a matching hat as well, ear flap and with dino spikes because he loves his hat with dino spikes.

I also decided to make myself another pair of mitts-instead of plain, everyday mitts, I went with maize by Tin Can Knits.  I love their Simple collection. the mitts are pretty cute, plus the pattern is so easy to memorize and the knitting is easy to "read" that I barely had to pay attention. (though maybe I should have paid better attention)

So I made two mitts (I leave the thumbs for last) and notice that one mitten is about an inch shorter than the other. Effffffff. I'm not sure which one is shorter, the first one, or the second one-I was binge watching episodes 8 and 9 of season 7 SOA (OMG!!!).  Malabrigo worsted is incredibly difficult to tink back.  Especially after the ends have been weaved in and trimmed and you're not even sure where the end is. I have to fix this, I made a size medium (kind of on the cusp of being too small for me, should have went with large) and I can't spare this missing inch...I took a deep breath, grabbed my scissors and gently cut around the top.  Did some tugging, some cursing, some pulling. A little more snip snip snipping, but finally was able to get the mitt back on the needles, re-knit all the way up, get in the missing inch, and make an even pair of mitts. 

Cutting into the top of the mitt is probably not what the experts recommend-but it worked for me! Look at all those little scraps ^ Not going to lie, it was pretty scary seeing pieces of yarn falling off the mitten. 

Surgery complete, it was time to knit thumbs. Thumbs are fun and quick.  (that furry grey lump is Nikki the asshole cat)

(yes, the mitt on the right looks smaller, but it's not, it's my crappy photography!)

The only issue with my mitts, is that I should have used a solid yarn. Whale's Road is very pretty but the colours and pooling overtake the pattern.  Close up-this is a more accurate representation of colour and pattern. Isn't the reverse stockinette nifty?!

I pretty much knit almost everything in solid, so I don't know why I chose Whale's Road to begin with-maybe to get myself out of my comfort zone? 

The mitts did not take up a lot of yardage, I have a pretty significant amount left-I don't know what to do with it though...I was thinking a striped scarf-mixed with a solid colour? I'm not sure how that would look...I always like seeing solid+Noro striped items, but Whale's Road is no Noro. I am open to ideas (hint hint)

After the mittens, I felt like doing a hat. Gyr seemed like an interesting pattern. Definitely something to knit with a solid colour yarn. I wanted a neutral colour, and in my stash (so much knitting from stash!) I have some Lana Gatto Camel Hair. Very light brown. I think it's colour is actually Camel.

It's listed as an Aran weight, made from 60% merino, 40% camel hair. 

There is no effing way this yarn is Aran weight. I wouldn't even call it worsted. It's definitely a light worsted or maybe even DK. It is super soft though. I knit a baby hat from it, just under a year ago and gave it away. Was such a cute little hat...

Anyhoooo, this project calls for the hat to be knit with 3 different sized needles; the I-cord on US size 7's, the ear flap on 8's, and the hat on US size 9's. 

I don't think I'm going to go up to the size 9's. I just don't think it will look nice. I'm not even sure I like how open (for lack of a better word) the knitting looks on size 8's. I'm not super invested in this hat. I do like that it has different elements to it, something to actually pay attention too as opposed to mittens which I could probably knit in my sleep at this point. Of course, that means I can't knit on this hat at all this weekend-at least not while the kids are awake. I never seem to knit much on weekends, unless we're doing a long car ride. I love long car ride knitting! It's so guilt free! I need some long car ride knitting...

FO Easy V-Neck

Why yes, that is me wearing my snazzy easy-raglan-v-neck! I'm very, very pleased. I have not one complaint about this sweater. It's the first large wearable item I've made that I have not had some kind of issue with. I love it. I want to make another one-but with MadTosh Vintage or Malabrigo Rios.. I do like Knitpicks Swish though, it's very nice next to the skin. I actually still have some leftover swish worsted, it didn't take nearly as much as it called for. I might use the leftover to make a sweater for B.
I finished it last Thursday night, tried it on, took pictures, then dumped it in the sink for a Eucalan bath.

I haven't tried it on again since the soaking, it's still kind of damp. It looks like it might have grown a tad, but only lengthwise, which is perfectly fine with me. I'm actually impressed that I knit it in a little over a month (while completing a couple of other little projects even) and that I finished it even though I burnt my hand last Monday while cooking dinner.

Usually, if there is a kitchen mishap it involves knives or some other sharp object-I'm not prone to burns, I'm a bleeder, not a blisterer. But anyway, cooking dinner, somehow managed to scoop and throw molten grease on my hand. Had some tiny wee blisters and had to keep it bandaged. It hurt way too bad to knit until Wednesday.
 It doesn't hurt at all anymore so I've been able to start knitting slippers for M's mother, sister and aunt for xmas.

We had ordered some Bulky Wool of the Andes from Knitpicks in Navy, Stormy and Wallaby. Will have plenty leftover to knit a pair for my mom as well. Since those slippers really don't take much yarn, and the yardage on the WotA is fairly generous, I'll likely knit some mitts as well. I lost a pair of my Malabrigo worsted flip-top mitts last winter so I could definitely use an extra pair of warm mitts. Actually, the way I lose things, I should make a couple of extra pairs of mitts!

Did you notice the wool in the picture above...how delightfully cake-y it looks? That is because my swift and ball winder came! I'm so very very pleased!  It works great, and it's so fast! OMG, so fast. So worth the money (Worth more than I paid really). Thank you Etsy!

Winding up some Malabrigo sock in Aguas, I do not know why it looks greyish in the picture below.

My first cake didn't come out so great-and I realized that the beveled edges of my table are not conducive to clamping. Our coffee table is perfect though! Thanks IKEA. That skein of  Yowza that I have? Would have taken me sooooo long to wind into a ball. I think it took 10 minutes? Even with  the 5yr old "helping".

So, I've got slippers to finish, mittens to cast on asap, and the urge to knit harvest
with the sweater quantity I have of WotA worsted (which feels rougher than the bulky? does that even make sense?). Plus, I have the pattern for an ear flap hat called gyr that I want to make-but I'm not sure what I have in the stash that would work for that hat. I was thinking the SweetGeorgia superwash worsted might work, but I have some Malabrigo worsted in this super pretty colourway (Whales Road)  but a solid colour yarn would probably look better with Gyr...maybe I'll make mittens out of the Malabrigo?

Sometimes, picking a project and picking the right yarn takes longer than actually knitting it.

buying and selling

Oh my, it's been a while hasn't it? Long enough that I had to read my last post to refresh my memory about the last projects I was working on. Stefanie Japel's  easy raglan v neck is still on the needles, I am, however, so, so close to finished that it makes complete sense that aside from knitting it at S&B (stitch n bitch as it will now be known as in my blog) I haven't touched the sweater in almost a week. I think I sat down and devoted an hour or so on Thursday so I could finish the first arm and then try it on (and it looks pretty great), only to fold it up and put it away. meh.
progress pictures:
Just before starting the waist ribbing:

Waist ribbing completed, arm ribbing on waste yarn so as to try it on-I have longish arms and like my sleeves to either be 3/4 or almost knuckle length.

Somewhere in all of that, I decided to knit B some extra mitts as his green mitts got felted and shrunk at school (I don't even know how that happened). Granted, they were a little small on him anyway. Going through the stash for colours he'd like proved difficult. I had a lot of leftover balls so I opted for striped mitts, great stash busters! I weighed each leftover ball, divided them in half and worked them up-I used bulky yarn on smaller needles for a denser, warmer knit. Worked out pretty well. Mitts are a great little project for playing with colours, and satisfying because they work up so fast.
The grey balls are Cascade 128 I believe? I've long since lost the tags. The black is leftover Swish bulky (<3 this stuff)  and the blue balls (hehe) are also Swish bulky, in Planetarium. The picture does not do it justice at all-it's one of my favourite colours that Knitpicks has.

 Working up so quick!

 Finished! B likes them, I like them. They're warm (too warm actually, his hand was sweating today when he wore them to the park) Success!

So that's all in actual knitting.

There has been some stuff going on in the home, I'm hesitant to talk about at this time. It's been stressful though-and it took a 4 day headache/ jaw ache to realize stress was making me clench my jaw. I'm trying to me more mindful and relax my jaw, and do some deep breathing when I have a chance. I also need to kick my ass into doing yoga again (and working out for that matter).  But yeah, I don't actually knit much when I'm stressed-I actually turn to reading more. I've re-read a number of books over the last couple of weeks. I tried to re-read American Psycho (a book I've read at least 30 times) and couldn't do it. I seem to crave autobiographies and memoirs when stressed.

Anywhoo! I ordered some lovely little tags for knitted items. I've only seen those ugly tags at Michaels-you know the ones "knitted for you with love" blargh. I don't necessarily want ones with my name on them either-especially since I give so many items away. But, I did need something I could sew onto the 5yr olds knitted things, that I could label.  Online options are many, but most of them were the ugly, itchy labels (5yr old is very picky about tags on his skin). Etsy to the rescue! And more specifically: Ananemone etsy shop! Love love love the labels. Everything in their store is just so damn sweet looking. I ordered these labels. It was a super easy transaction, shipping was fast and I'm really pleased with the labels.

 I will definitely order from them again.

I ordered some Wool Of The Andes Bulky from Knitpicks, in Navy, Stormy and Wallaby (well technically M ordered it) so I could make his mom, sister and aunt each a pair of slippers (my go to slipper leethal mary-janes) for Christmas as all of them are difficult to shop for and apparently like home made gifts. I got the shipping notice on Friday so I should get the wool by this coming Friday, or early next week. If I crack down and actually knit the second sleeve, I could have my sweater finished before the WOTA gets here. Each slipper only takes (me) a few hours, so I shouldn't have any trouble getting them all done in time for xmas-maybe I'll have enough wool (and time) leftover to make my own mom a pair as well.


Then I did some selling of my own-I had some yarn I absolutely hated working with. I bought a butt ton (aka sweater quantity)of berroco fuji to make a sweater from the berroco website. Started to knit the sweater, hated how it felt. Didn't even really like how it looked knitted up. Frogged it, balled it up and shoved it in a drawer for a couple of years (possibly 3?) I hate ebay, and wasn't familiar with how to sell items on etsy (nor could I fathom opening an etsy store for one item), so I thought I'd try one of the yarn communities on reddit. Not long after I posted I got a message from someone who was interested. I was so happy that someone wanted to take the whole lot that I gave her an incredibly low price. Happily! Someone gets yarn they think is beautiful, and I get to make space for yarn I'll actually use!

 I'm hoping she makes something fabulous!

So the transaction went down last week-money just languishing in my paypal account when, while surfing, an email from Knitpicks popped up. Ah! Sales! On yarn swifts and ball winders! I'm thinking, "oooh, use the money from berroco fuji sale and get a swift!" Can you get a swift without ball winder? no! I need both. But they're kind of pricey...start googling. Not looking like I can afford both, I could get one or the other. Check Ebay (I hate ebay) check local craigslist and kajiji (y'all are crazy to charge almost full price for a yarn swift that looks like it was chewed by your dog. Eff that.) Just to cover my bases, check Etsy-and BOOM! Mama's got a yarn swift and ball winder on the way. I like the look, I like the price, and my paypal covered all but 3$! Sweeeeet! I'm pretty excited by this.

As for the Bulky Cowl I made a couple of weeks back? I did give it away. It was super soft and super cute, but I just didn't like the colour on me :/  I offered it up on facebook and it was literally scooped up minutes later. Both my mom and P were bummed that they didn't get it in time. It's so nice to have one's work coveted :)

I have this scarf (I should get a picture of it-it's just a garter stitch scarf in some teal yarn that I think I bought at Walmart 4-5 years ago?)-it's about 9.5 feet long-I'm thinking about undoing a couple of yard (or like half of it's total length) and turning it into an infinity scarf, or make it even shorter and turn it into a cowl.  I suggested to T that she could do that and it made me start thinking about the scarves I have made over the past couple of years...like this one I knit last winter:

It's called soda-fountain-scarf and I used Malabrigo Worsted in Glazed Carrot. I love it, but now I'm wondering if I should seam it at the end, call it an infinity scarf and love it even more??? Hrm...something to think about!