Scarf of Pretty Good Softness, Done

And a pic, of course.


Overall, I'm happy with the felting. It really evened out the stitches. However, it doesn't feel quite as soft to me as it did before felting, so that's a minus. It's still softer than most scarves I own, but not crazy soft. It is VERY warm.

Striped Scarf, Done

And here's a pic of the striped scarf.


I've heard there's a setting on my camera for self portraits, but I believe that's just a myth. I did this the old-fashioned way, standing in front of a mirror. So there.

Felting and Blocking the Sinsation Scarf

This evening I put the Sinsation scarf into the washing machine to felt it. Took it out of the dryer and couldn't even bear to look at it - mind you, everything I read online said it would be this way, but still. It was a wadded mess inside the lingerie bag. I put that into the dryer and took it out while still damp.

I think it's all good. It's a little narrower than I expected, so I pulled on it to make it a bit wider again and I'm blocking it that way. The texture seems like the felted scarves I've seen in the yarn stores, so I have hope.

Keep your fingers crossed...

Some Works In Progress

Fun stuff, as follows:

Striped scarf, to match my striped mittens. This is a tube of stockinette stitch. I'm sewing the ends shut using Kitchener stitch. I'm on the very last blue stripe, so I may finish it this weekend.




Purple scarf of amazing softness. This is done in an absurdly expensive (to me) chenille yarn. I've been wanting one for years, so I just bought myself 4 skeins of it and it's sooooo neat. And yes, it really is that glossy.

It's about 5 inches wide. I may felt it later, but from what I read it should only lose about 10% of it's size if I do, so that should be OK.


And this is the cuff of what will become elbow-length purple fingerless mittens. I'm making these up as a go along, so we'll see how it goes.

Oh Dear

Three women were in the waiting room of an obstetrician, and each of them was knitting a sweater for their baby-to-be. The first one stopped and took a pill.

"What was that?" The others asked her.
"Oh, it was Vitamin C, I want my baby to be healthy."

A few minutes later, another woman took a pill.
"What was that?" the others asked.
"Oh, it was iron, I want my baby to be big and strong."

They continued knitting. Finally the third woman took a pill.
"What was that?" the others asked her.

"It was thalidomide," she said, "I just can't get the arms right on this fucking sweater!"

My Striped Mitts

Yes, I do occasionally knit stuff for myself. Fingerless mitts!





Details on Ravelry, here.

Slippers for A.!

Done, and done. These turned out much better than the ones I made for M., but I think that instead of re-making these for M., I'll probably make him house socks in worsted weight yarn. Anyhow, here are pics! (These are actually deep blue and violet, not that you can tell that from the pictures.)





And the soles:




Details on Ravelry, here.

Cold Cows

I was up way too late last night watching, among other things, "Freezer to Furnace" on the Science channel. They were talking about the village of Oimyakon, which is claimed by some to be the coldest place on earth.

Then, very briefly, they mentioned that it's so cold there the cows have to wear udder warmers so they don't freeze. And they showed a cow wearing something that might be a knitted sort of cozy over her udders. I can't actually tell if it's knitted or some other craft - other opinions would be much appreciated.

Delighted, I began searching the internet. Guess what? Udder warmer is slang for something else entirely. (Look it up in the Urban Dictionary if you must.) I found a couple of articles saying people in this area have to make bras out of fur for their cows, but nothing showing the pictures the TV show did. Desperate, I paused the show and took pictures of the screen. And here they are for your enjoyment...

Other Mitts For D.

I'm on a roll - here is the second pair of mitts for D. They have medium grey stripes instead of blue.



This is me modeling - M.'s kind of cranky right now, so I didn't ask him to do it. You can see that this is a bigger size:


Details on Ravelry, here.

Mitts For P's Mom

But wait! There's more!

I made these for P's mom. After seeing the ones I was working on over New Year's Eve she told me that her mom could really do with a pair, so...



And modeled by P:


By the way, the band-aid on P's thumb? That's from her baby, S., kicking her only moments before. He kicked her at just the right angle to push one of her fingernails against her thumb and cut it. Dangerous baby! :-D

Details on Ravelry, here.

More Fingerless Mitts

Busy, busy, busy! I started these for D. at work to give to her grandsons. But I got sick so she'll just give them as late presents when I get them done. I finished doing the blue stripes on these at J&P's house on New Year's Eve with J, P, J's mom, and M. As you can imagine, we celebrate in a very mellow way.

This is the first pair out of two:


And here is M. kindly modeling them for me:


Details are on Ravelry, here.

Mike Slippers, Take 2

Before we left for Miami, I finished these. They're based on Mom's slipper pattern, with only very slight modifications. Her pattern says you can use 1 or 2 strands of worsted weight yarn. I used 1, and I'm not too happy with how they turned out. I'm working on another pair right now with 2 strands and they have a lot more structure. But here are the 1-strand ones, for what it's worth:





Details are on Ravelry, here.

Miami Knitting

For Xmas this year M. and I went to Miami, as usual. I was recovering from being sick and then M. got sick too. Oh well. We spent most of our time there resting at his Mom & Dad's house. To pass the time, I knitted these:

For M.:


This one's a bit blurry, but you get to see M. wearing them:


And for me:

(By the way, big thanks to my sister-in-law, A. Her style of teaching crochet left me feeling all confident about improvising. Yay!)

Details at Ravelry. For the fingerless mittens, go here. For the bag, go here.

Mom's Old Patterns

I looked on Ravelry for slipper patterns, but I didn't find any that impressed me. Not free ones, anyway. However, I did find some that were almost as good as the ones my mom used to make. Eventually, I realized that I might as well follow Mom's pattern instead of these Johnny-come-lately Ravelry ones. (No offense to anyone - I'm just amused that what's old is new, etc., etc.)

So I dug up the old notes that Mom gave me several years back, typed them up in Word, and then thought I might as well take some pictures of the old notes because, hey, mimeograph. Ancient typewriter. And an excellent glove schematic which really, really helps, because I can't read the shorthand her actual notes on the gloves are written in.

Forthwith, pictures for posterity:

Good Fingerless Mitts

I decided to do something easy to recover from the bad slippers, so I made a pair of fingerless mitts. I plan to give them to JV at work, since I saw her typing while wearing a pair of borrowed gloved a few days ago. Shocking.

Behold!

This is how they look when nobody's wearing them:


From the front, when worn:


And from the back, when worn:


I used this pattern here. More details on Ravelry, as usual.

Bad Slipper

Last night I finished a slipper for M. (Like these: Xmas Slippers.)

In a fit of wisdom I had him try it on before I started the 2nd one. It was too loose. Why??? I used the same yarn and needles that I did for his Dad's slippers, and those fit him just fine. Arg!!!

My current plant is to chop up this slipper with an axe, burn the remains, find a spiffy new slipper pattern, and start a brand new pair for M. Humph.

Another Pumpkin Hat

And here's the next one, modeled by a very well-behaved peanut butter jar:

Pumpkin Hat

One pumpkin hat done! Pictures to follow as soon as I get more batteries for the camera...

Now, pictures!

Boog Bag, Part 4

Done! Check it out:





And here's how I poked the holes for the strap: