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.