mitten question

Daniel has asked for red mittens "jus' like" the ones in one of his favorite books, The Three Kittens. You know, the classic tale of the three little kittens who lost their mittens? In this particular book's illustrations, one of the kittens has red mittens, and they have apparently caught the Danimal's eye. Truly cold weather is soon upon us and he's going to need warm mittens regardless, so of course I want to honor his request! I want to get these mittens done by Halloween; he wants to be a cat for Halloween (he's really excited about wearing a costume, and I haven't even told him about the candy yet!) and I thought it appropriate to dress him up as a kitten with the found mittens. You see?

I'm not much into felting, but I know that felted mittens would be far warmer and more wind and waterproof than non-felted mittens, even if they're knitted at a tight gauge. I checked out Felted Knits from the library and found a pattern for toddler and child-sized felted mittens. Problem is, the pattern calls for DK weight yarn. I've got a bit of red yarn in sport (lighter than DK) and worsted (heavier than DK) and the bit of red yarn in I have in DK weight is superwash, so it won't felt. Do I go with sport yarn, or worsted? Worsted is probably going to be warmer, but it might be so heavy and stiff he won't wear them. Any ideas out there?

handknits in action

Geez, does anyone read this blog anymore? Or am I just too boring for comments? Oh well. This blog is really for me, whether anyone reads it or not.

Anyway. Witness my attempts to get a nice picture of BOTH kids this afternoon in that little window of time we could be outside without freezing our tails off.

"Hey, Daniel. Sit next to Anya, would you? Could you look at her? Help her with whatever that thing is. I want a good picture for your grandparents. No? You'd rather look the other way? Well, all right."




"Okay, kids. Now could you look up at the camera?"



Sigh. Maybe next time.

gauge guessing

"Be prepared" is the Boy Scout motto, and it's a good thing to live by, in general. You save for retirement, you study for tests, you take childbirth classes before you go into labor, you never leave the house without at least three fresh diapers and a package of wipes (at least, I don't...not anymore). Being prepared, they tell you, gets you through life with less stress and anxiety than not being prepared.

Of course, life is unpredictable and being prepared doesn't always mean you're ready for what's coming. In my country, people's retirement investments are headed down the toilet. The only guy I knew in high school who never flunked a test was an insufferable know-it-all with photographic memory. No amount of time in childbirth class could prepare me for having a baby; for that matter, having baby #1 with lots of happy drugs didn't exactly prepare me for having baby #2 without so much as a Tylenol. And don't ask about the diapers - it was a long ride home is all I'm saying.

This brings me to swatching.



I'm a good, obedient knitter. More often than not, I swatch. It's a good thing, too, because lately my gauge is quite different from what is on the label. Take the dark blue swatch on the far right, for example. It's Dale of Norway Harlequinn, a deliciously soft tweedy cashmere blend. The gauge listed on the label is 18st=4" on 4.5-5mm needles, and I'm getting more like 22st=4". I could tell just looking at that skinny yarn that my gauge would be way off. Fortunately, it's not a problem for this particular project - a hat for Daniel's best buddy that I'm "designing" myself (if you can call a vanilla stockinette stitch hat with a stripe "designing," which I don't).

But having guage different from that listed is only the first issue. The other thing is figuring out exactly what your gauge is. I knit generous swatches for accurate measuring, but it's often hard to tell just how many stitches lie in that 4" span. At first count, it may be 20, but if you smooth out the swatch a bit, suddenly it's only 18, and if you fluff it up a bit and measure again, it might be 21. Blocking doesn't always clear up the issue, either. Does anyone else have this problem? So, swatch or not, I often end up just taking a guess and hoping things turn out. Since I knit things for little people as often as not, this usually works out.

Then, too, sometimes I don't swatch. Like for lace. I never swatch for lace because I know it will just get bigger. Speaking of lace, there's been a bit of progress on this:



I spent my knitting time the past three evenings tinking, re-knitting, tinking, re-knitting (lather, rinse repeat) until I fixed the problem. Note to self: don't knit lace during presidential debates. I probably could have saved some time just starting over, but for some reason I was determined not to give up on what I'd already done. I plan to finish this shawl by the end of the week. It's my mom's birthday present, and even though she knows about it, I want to save the nice FO shots for when she has it in person.

Now, then. Speaking of being prepared, I've got a recital to practice for!

debate

I started another vintage shetland lace project this week. This one's for my mom, and the big challenge for me is that it's a triangular shawl, something I've never done before. The pattern itself isn't hard. In fact, after just one of the main repeats on the chart, I was going along well enough that I could watch the teevee while knitting it.

Until last night's presidential debate. I don't know if it was because I was so impressed with Barack Obama's eloquence and ability to be completely unfazed no matter what ridiculous accusation John McCain threw at him, or if it was my flare-ups of rage at the Republican "free market and less government is better no matter what" BS McCain kept spouting, but something misfired in the knitting part of my brain, and I screwed up. I had to stop mid-row, see?



I think, actually, it might have been the moment when John McCain said that Sarah Palin is a role model for women across the country. I think he knew how pathetic that statement was, but it still made me choke. Or maybe it was the discussion of Roe vs. Wade, and McCain's idea that we can solve the whole problem if all those unintended pregnancies end up in adoption...but don't get me started.

In any case, I've got to figure out how to solve this lace problem. I think I've got a lot of tinking ahead of me!

just in the nick of time

I just finished my third and final sweater for Afghans for Afghans' current campaign. I've said a lot about this organization, and I've mentioned the current drive several times, so I won't go on and on or I'll start repeating myself. Anyway, this sweater should have been finished a week ago, but various things kept me from making the progress I wanted. I finished sewing up and blocking Thursday night, let the thing dry all day Friday (bulky yarn takes a while, even when you hang it right by the de-humidifier) and sent all three sweaters (the other two were the EZ tomten and the KPS neckdown cardigan) priority mail this morning. I hope they get to San Fransisco by Tuesday's deadline.

Pattern: Basically mine, but I used the template for child-size drop-shoulder sweater from Ann Budd's sweater book.
Yarn: some kind of wool/angora/silk blend by Noro leftover from a sweater my mom made for me last year. It's VERY warm and took just under 4 hanks to complete a 32" sweater.
Needles/gauge: 15st=4" on size 10 (6mm)

I don't have that much on the needles currently (we'll ignore all my hibernating WIPs for the moment), just those orange socks for Daniel (I'm about to finish #5 and I'm still trying to decide how many warrant an FO post...) and some swatches while I decide what to do next.