Good Day to Stay In

February may be the month with the fewest days, but this year it feels interminable. Today it was warmish (50 degrees) and rainy, but the next few days promise a return of wintery conditions. Many blogs that I follow contain similar rants against the weather. Will it never end? Those of us who garden need to smell some dirt!

To fend off winter's chill, I finished another pair of Maine Morning Mitts:



... so now I have a complete ensemble:



To refresh your memory, these items are the Math Geek scarf, Lark's Bubble Wrap cap, and from The Knitter's Book of Yarn, Maine Morning Mitts, all from two skeins of Cascade 220 Paints, all knit on size US7 needles. Each mitt weighs 26g and all that remained when I finished was 1g of yarn. That's calling it close!

The weather being what it was, I decided to spend the afternoon doing taxes. Not my favorite activity, but TurboTax makes it relatively painless. This year I am getting a refund :-) but only because I withheld more than usual :-(. But at least that task is out of the way.

While working up a spreadsheet of my charitable donations, I came across an old budget from 2006, which got me wondering how I spent my money this past year. I started working up a summary of 2007 and had to enter a separate line item for yarn. Yikes! Maybe I should practice more stash busting this year.

And tonight I am finally, finally blocking the red-red-red sweater. Hopefully it will be wearable, another layer of armor against the cold.

Popularity

I finished the Maine Morning Mitts at lunch today and showed them to a co-worker, and each person who happened by had to try them on, which led to ooh's and aah's and these are so warm and my wife would love these.



They may have a craft bazaar at work this fall, and these mitts are so quick and easy I was thinking of including them in my offerings.



But I would probably knit them in something friendlier (and cheaper). I loved watching the colors emerge in the Noro Kureyon, but the wool itself? Not so much. Although Clara Parkes includes this yarn in the single ply section of her book, I think it is actually two-ply, but a very stiff and inelastic and scratchy two-ply.



But, oddly enough, once knit up, the yarn felt softer. I expected the colorway to repeat but it did not, so if you want matching mitts, you will need to buy two skeins.

Oh, look, here is another FO: Lark's Bubble Wrap Cap.



I used Cascade 220 Paints and US7 needles, just like for the Math Geek scarf.



And, in case you missed it, the yarn is not maroon and black, but cranberry, berry, and navy.



Since there was still 50g of this yarn left, I started another pair of Maine Morning Mitts to complete the ensemble. Since the Noro mitts were a bit snug on my ginormous hands, I am increasing the row length by 3 stitches. The first one is almost done already. Like I said, they are quick to knit.

What a Maroon

Yesterday, on my way home from yoga, I stopped in at Sarah Jane's to see if I could find some wool to match the maroon in my Math Geek scarf. I ran into my SO in the parking lot (no, he was not buying yarn, he was after coffee), and I was explaining my dilemma of wanting to make some maroon and black mittens to match the scarf. We both examined the scarf in the light of day and discovered it is not maroon and black but more of a berry, cranberry, and navy. In my defense, there has not been very much sunshine around here lately.

More about yesterday: Needing some motivation to vacuum, I rearranged the livingroom furniture, a side effect of which is there is now more natural light where I sit (and knit) on the couch. Needing something simple to work on - socks on US1 seemed too myopic, a lace shawl in fingerling involved too much counting - I started Lark's Bubble Wrap Cap in the same yarn as the Math Geek scarf. Not needing it, I kept being reminded that the yarn is berry, cranberry, and navy.

Now something about today: I finished the red-red-red sweater!!! At least, the knitting part and the grafting the armpits part and the weaving of the ends part. Now all that remains is the blocking part. However, I tried on the sweater one last time, and since it is so freakin' cold today, I kept the sweater on. The blocking can wait until a warmer day.

(You David Sedaris fans have probably read Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. I am contemplating a companion book: Dress Yourself (and Your Baby!) in Wool and Cotton. Besides the sweater, I am wearing my Clara Barton socks, and when I took pity on the wildlife and went outside to fill the bird feeders, I added the Math Geek scarf and the hat from the Chunky Winter Set. Yes, I did resemble a homeless person, but believe me, no one else was outside to witness my fashion statement.)

For the record, the red-red-red sweater is still seamless and purl-less, but now also snoodless. I was really attached to the idea of calling it the Snoody-Hoody, but the snood part was just too bulky. Maybe in another yarn, one with more drape, it would work, but not Cascade 220. And for you purists, the seamless part may be compromised by the armpit grafts, depending on how you feel about grafting. I find it much simpler than seaming - even though I had to resort to The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques to learn how to graft live stitches with bound off stitches - that I declare it to be different from seaming. So the seamless status of this sweater stands.

Speaking of babies (and I was, more or less, two paragraphs ago), a friend of mine just became a new grandma, so she is getting one of my "grandmother sets". That's the last set, and I have more friends who are expectant grandmas, so it's time to knit some more. Babies are messy!