The dishes mittens are done, bitch.

I wish I had some buttons to use as eyes, but unfortunately I didn't have 4 teeny tiny matching buttons. Beads have to do. Now I am redoing Kevin's Marram hat. it's coming along nicely and maybe I'll have it finished by tomorrow (a day too late for this super blizzard we just got last night).

Validation

So this past weekend we had some friends over for a 'beer tasting' party (Kev needed help deciding which beer to enter into the next homebrew competition coming up this weekend). After several (I do mean several) beers our friend Mike just started positively gushing over my knitting. Complimenting my socks, stuffing his fingers into my mittens (that sounds vaguely naughty) and generally just showing off my stuff to everyone. It was nice to hear someone appreciate my knits (now I really do need to get around to making him a hat...after Christmas, first thing!). Kev shrugs and says things are nice, but Mike just went gaga over little details. He was just amazed at how fine the knitting was on my socks, exclaiming 'they're just like store bought!'. Ha! Since I don't have many knitter friends it's not often people compliment the details.

So yeah, it was nice to have a bit of (albeit, drunken) validation.

Progress:

Mitten 2 is 2/3 of the way done. I've been busy with homework and shopping and decorating and stuff so I haven't gotten to sit down and finish it off. Maybe by tomorrow if I get my exams taken care of tonight.  I've just got about 3-4 inches to go and that won't take long.

Manda's Scarf is slowly coming along. I got about 4-5 inches knitted on it this weekend. This will just require a day or two of hardcore nonstop knitting. After the mitten is done, that is what I will do.

Oh and I started a little tiny cthulhu from Creepy Cute Crochet for my friend Joe. Hey, it's what he asked for for Christmas! Still deciding on if I'm going to deal with the polymer clay eyes, or just stitch little black eyes on? IDK. This is my first amigurumi. It's nice to finally get to stuff something after buying a big bag of polyfill like 2 years ago.:)

One mitten down.

I finished mitten one. Did I mention these things go like, super fast? I started it last night after work, and finished it today after work. I could probably knit two on a weekend day if I didn't have much else going on.

Here are pictures of mitten one. As a side note, I really miss day time. Taking pictures without natural lighting blows.



And just to show you how big of a failure the original mitten is, I put them side by side.



The only thing I'm not completely happy about is the bumpy top. I don't think I like it pointy. I'd rather have a round mitten, but whatever. Blocking should smooth it out a bit.

Brilliant!

Using the thicker yarn and going up a size or two really helped things out. The first mitten is working up super quick (I'm already 2/3 of the way through it and that's since getting home from work) and it fits perfectly! For future reference I'll just have to remember to go big when making the Give a Hoot Mittens.

So I really do give a Hoot...

I finished the left mitten last night. Well, mostly finished. Still need to do the thumb but that's on hold right now because the actual mitten is just...small. My hand fits into it, but my fingers have to curl a little and it's tight across my palm. It also just feels kind of flimsy and not very warm. Judging by the comments from others who have made these mittens it's not just me. The pattern just makes really small mittens. I know my Mom's hands are probably smaller than mine, but I'm not sure if they're so small that these mittens will work for her. I thought about blocking it out but again, I'm not sure how much that will help. So for now I'm going to push the pause button on that mitten and cast on again using slightly thicker yarn (yarn form baby hats v 1.0 and 2.0) and larger needles (size 9 since that's the only other larger size dpns that I currently own and am too poor to buy more until tomorrow and gosh darn it, I'm impatient). I'm not confident enough in my knitting math to try adapting the pattern by adding in stitches so I'm hoping this technique works and I get a larger mitten out of it. I'll also probably add in a few extra rows here and there just to make sure I get them long enough.

If that works then I'll either frog the first mitten or perhaps make it a gift for my niece Kaitlyn. (Do 13 year old girls have small hands? They probably do...right?)

I just don't Give a Hoot!

So I decided to make a pair of Give a Hoot mittens for my Mom as a Christmas present. I'm using the Aliki beach Cascade 220 that I posted about way back when and so far, it's been working up really quickly. I'm concerned about the thumb. The instructions wind up leaving me with a super huge gap after separating out the thumb stitches, but I'm going with it and I'll see if I like how it turns out. They work up quickly enough that if I decide I don't like it I could frog it and redo it w/an after thought thumb or something. (I think. Not sure how much that involves changing the pattern.) The owl is super simple and cute. I may just start putting owls on everything I knit, now that I know how easy they are. Owl hats! Owl socks! Owl scarves! The possibilities are endless. (Speaking of owl socks, how cute are these?! They may have to be my first project of the new year...)

Kev's hat is still hanging out in the frog pond. Manda's scarf is coming along slowly but surely. And I'm forcing myself to ignore my socks until the Give a Hoots are finished.

Sorry, no pictures now, but maybe when I finish my first mitten.