Some Actual Knitting Content!

In my quest to slowly get back into blogging etc, I took some photos of some FOs that I finished at the end of last year/beginning of this year. Gloves and mittens are easy to take relatively decent photos of, so I started with them :)

First off, last year at some point I frogged my version of the Druid Mittens that I had started to make with fingering weight yarn (I posted about them here) They were just a bit too small, and I never got round to finishing them, because I kind of knew that I'd be unhappy with them. Then I thought of making them with DK weight yarn instead, as it would be an easy way to make them larger without having to mess about with the pattern. So I used this green yarn (it's wool/acrylic, possibly Stylecraft Life DK, but I've forgotten exactly. I'm about 80% sure it's Life DK though), and slightly larger needles I think. See, this is why keeping blog posts and putting things on ravelry is much easier when you do it directly after making the item! :D Anyway, I just knit the pattern as written, since I didn't have much brain space for modifications, and I just wanted to get them done and out of my queue. Here's some photos:





And here's a photo with one of them steam blocked and the other not:



Pattern: Druid Mittens by Jared Flood, from Vogue Knitting Fall 2008
My ravelry project page: here

I did another re-knit as well. I don't know if I'd ever posted about the Something Floral fingerless mitts, but I'd started to knit them in some fingering weight yarn before - in black and white. But again, they were small. So I decided to just frog them (I went through a bit of a frogging phase in my knitting slump!) But I really like the pattern, and wanted to make them, so I cast them on again. This time I used different yarn - it's possibly Regia sock yarn, but again, I've forgotten and lost the ball bands :)

This is the project that made me figure out that I need to knit colourwork either on very large needles compared to the pattern recommendation, or go up a yarn weight. They're still snug, even using larger needles, but they can at least go on now :) They'll be perfect for autumn days either with T-shirts or under a cardi or something.





Some detail shots:







And mid-steam-blocking:



Pattern: Something Floral by Miranda Grant
My ravelry project page: here

And finally, a pattern I'd been wanting to knit for ages, in a yarn that I'd been wondering what to make out of for ages :)









Pattern: Susie Rogers' Reading Mitts by Susie Rogers
Yarn: a colourmart merino (DK?) that I got in my goodie bag at Knit Camp. I'd been wondering what to make out of it for ages, because I wasn't sure how much there was. Then I saw this pattern in my queue and the two matched together! I had a teeny bit left over, it just went in my scraps bag :)
My ravelry project page: here

Yay, a post about actual knitting! I'm going to try to photograph some more stuff later on or tomorrow - it turns out that even though I considered I was in a knitting slump, I still managed to get quite a few projects finished! :D

It's been a while...

but I'm back :D

I disappeared from knitting for a while. My mojo just up and disappeared all of a sudden :( I actually hardly knit anything for a while, and even stopped listening to knitting podcast. I even, gasp, didn't go on ravelry.

I'm blaming it on two things. First of all, I was quite ill over the summer there. I was having problems breathing, and couldn't sleep at night without waking up out of breath, then I got a cold/flu which turned into tonsilitis. It really sucked. On the bright side, out of it all, I *finally* got diagnosed with asthma, after having these symptoms for the past few years. It's aggravated by hayfever for me, so in the summer it gets worse. Which explains the chest problems I've had for the past 3 summers :/ But I have inhalers and anti-histamines galore now, and it's great. I can actually sleep all night through! You wouldn't believe what a difference that has made. Sleep seems like such an basic thing, but when you're waking up every 3 hours and your sleep is interrupted to such a degree, it's hard to focus on anything through the day, and my energy levels were going right down. But now, I feel good. I have energy - even my metabolism seems a bit speeded up and my weight is easier to control over the past month or so of having these meds.

I'm also blaming my lack of motivation on deadline knitting. I went to my cousin's wedding last month, and had to knit a shrug for it. I also had a couple of other things that had to be knit quickly, and my appetite for knitting just disappeared because of it. :( The shrug turned out nice though - here's me in my "going to a wedding" outfit:



You can't see it that well because it's black, but it's another Two Tone Ribbed Shrug (pattern by Stephanie Japel from the book Fitted Knits). I made it from Debbie Bliss Rialto DK on 4mm needles. It's the third time I've knit that shrug. It's a very flattering shrug and I love it, but having to knit it quickly just put me right off :(

I'm getting my mojo back - I've been listening to podcasts again and have been queueing patterns on ravelry, and even been knitting too!





These are the Deep In The Forest Mittens by Tuulia Salmela. I've wanted to knit these for ages! I spun the yarn myself - merino, to just over a fingering weight, and then knit them this month as part of the Harry Potter Knit And Crochet House Cup over on ravelry. It was good motivation, and I'm really enjoying colourwork just now! I've even spun up the yarn for my next pair of colourwork handspun mittens already!

I modified the pattern so that the picture would be the same on both hands on the front and back. I did this just by working the chart from left to right on the right mitten, and placing the thumb on the other side of the front. I also reversed the braided edging on the right mitten so that the arrows on them would both face “inwards”, by reversing the two rows on which the braiding is worked.

I'm so pleased with these mittens! I love making colourwork out of my handspun! I'm still a bit put off knitting anything else at the moment, like hats or pullovers or anything like that, but I'm really enjoying the process of spinning and knitting mittens, so I'll just go with that for the time being :) I hope to get even more back into it soon :D

FO: Galileo Mittens

My very first ever project knitted with my own handspun!!!



Pattern: Galileo Mittens by Laura Chau
Yarn: My own handspun :D Corridale, orange and black spun into a heavy fingering weight

I love these mittens!! Ever since I first saw the pattern come up on ravelry, I've wanted to make them. I was going to use my pink handspun as the contrast colour, but it turned out too thin, as I've blogged, so I spun up some orange that I had left over from another spinning project, and deliberately tried to make it the same size as the black. This was my first spinning project intentionally spinning my yarn to a certain size, and it turned out pretty good!



I really loved knitting with my handspun. I would have written "enjoyed" there, to break up the monotony of the word "loved" which I've used about ten million times in regard to this project, but that really is how I feel about it. I didn't just enjoy knitting with it, I really, really loved it! I kept saying to my partner about how I was knitting with yarn that I had made, and that I'd actually made knitable yarn that I liked. It got to the point where he was fed up hearing about it :D

It turns out that I really like my yarn to be tightly spun and plied. It had never even occured to me before, but it turns out that I naturally spin yarn how I like to knit it. How awesome is that?! There was no splitting, none of the twist fell out as I was knitting with it, as has happened with some commercial yarns. And not just the cheap acrylics!

I just can't get over that I spun the yarn, and then knit it into these mittens! I'm already spinning for another pair of mittens - I'm going to have quite a handspun mitten collection at this rate. The only thing is that spinning on a drop spindle is quite slow, so it'll take me a bit of time to get enough yarn to make a pair of mittens, but I'm knitting some colourwork fingerless mitts out of commercial yarn in the meantime. It's just not the same now though! I've been totally spoiled!



I think what I really like about this pattern is the (almost)random/abstract-ness of the design. Geometric repeating patterns are good, but this pattern looks so different that it was the first pattern I thought of when I decided to knit mittens out of my handspun. Not that that stopped me from queuing loads of others for the future! :D They fit really well too, the first pair of mittens I've knit where the fit is just perfect and not too tight or anything.



The pattern knit up really well, no errors or anything, and I really like how it was explained and written out. Laura's an excellent designer, one of my favourites - I really must knit more of her patterns. I have a major desire to knit the Cityscape pullover - a larger handspun project, perhaps? ;)

I think I will definitely knit these again. I just love the pattern (there's that word again, but it's true!) and I had a lot of fun making them. Now if only December would hurry up and arrive so I could wear them outside!! :D