Split Finger Mittens

Darliss to the rescue.  Those black gloves that were too big (scroll down if you click)?  Remember I frogged them.  But I still owed my daughter her glubs.

And Darliss had just finished for herself a pair of Split Finger Mittens.  Here's the finished product.  Fun to make and quite cute tho they look out of proportion until you put your hands inside.

The "L" is for "left hand" and the right hand has a red thumb.
No confusion here.

Sorry, but no link for the pattern since it's from Darliss' storehouse of creative ideas.  The yarn is Patons Canadiana, stash from the 5 Christmas Hatts.  (Here).

I love the bright contrasts and the stripes.  The colors are the school colors for Concordia Lutheran School in Tacoma, where grandson is in 4th grade and his mom and dad are loyal supportive parents.

However -- adding color always means lots of weaving in of the ends, unless you can carry the contrast  without cutting the yarn (which I didn't do.)

Messy messy and lots of ends, the pesky kind.  I'm listening to S.J. Parris' Heresy, more English turmoil during the days of the Reformation.

Here it is "sorted" as the Brits say.

Hoping the Conductive Thread works so the wearer can use mobile devices even while wearing the mittens.

It's twirly twisty 'thread' and hard to sew with.
I hope the 'blob' will suffice.

Meanwhile, the clown quilt is ready for backing and quilting.  This has been a fun project and went very quickly.

 Busy week ahead with quilting and sewing some projects.  Hoping you each have a pleasant week with a minimum of chaos.

What's that for?

Husband:  What's that for?
Me:  Haven't used it since I made the apron.  Figured it was time. (Apron post here.)
You:  Read (or scroll) to the end to find the answer.  Most of you will have guessed and many of you (no insult intended) will admit to the same behavior.

Working on lots of things -- sewing and knitting and cross stitch.  As a friend recently remarked:  ooooh, too many projects.  I, on the other hand, can attest to the truth:  There are never tooooo many projects.

First one is a wonderful tote kit from Connecting Threads.  It's in their Red Rhapsody fabric collection. Size is about 15 x 3 x 9, not too big and not too small.  This one was my Saturday morning project.

Great collection of coordinated red
fabrics in a charm pack, plus
fabric and lining to go with.

You can see the fabulous lining, plus the mondo
button I selected for the closure.

Mr. Clown, from the crib blanket, has most of his face now.

Must finish some bits of hair outline and his
left check, plus ruffle at the neck

Patches on the overalls and bits of his sox and pink shoes.  Cutie pie!

The knitting?  Not going so well.  Finally got around to the glubs I promised my daughter for Christmas.  Pix below will show progress and pride, but alas:  much toooo big all over.  Kit from KnitPicks, with conductive thread for forefinger and thumb so glove removal is not required when using mobile devices.  Clever.

The gloves have been frogged.  I've rediscovered The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns, by Ann Budd.

Not quite a re-do; I'm leaving the ribbing (which has actually been completed for both gloves.)

Will begin again at the ribbing.  

Now that you are finally at the end of the scrolling and/or reading, you may have decided you know "What's that for?"  The "that" is "this" and you may (or may NOT) remember what it's "for."  Giggles.

Yup, I vacuumed the sewing room.
So it's ready for the next project.

Sure hope your Saturday morning has been as much fun as mine.  Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Sunshine and Glubs

Finished!  One Glove!  Oh, and it's wonderful.  Plus I had such a good time working on it.

The sun shining on the left side.  Wonderful to see.

On to Glub2.  I know.  I said I was gonna switch back and forth as I completed each finger.  Well, I just got in a groove and kept going til this one was finished.

On the not-so-good-news side -- they may be a bit big.  I chose the large size, because I have large hands and unless I buy men's gloves can't find them to fit.  The cheap stretchy $1.00 gloves work until my fingers poke thru.  So I knit the large size.  Now I have gloves that fit and I don't think I know what that's supposed to feel like!

I will have some yarn left over when the other glove is complete.  Thinking I'll buy something to coordinate with this pink stripe and make some sox.  Maybe with a solid heel and a stripe across the instep plus a few stripes on the band.  Ideas and thoughts so far.

Back to the other glub.  These are great fun so I'm already looking at other patterns.

One more picture to show how the self-striping yarn worked out.  See the orange finger tips on three of the fingers and almost on the thumb?  Kewel, I think.

Point yourself toward some light and go there.  Tis a peaceful place to be.

This little finger went to market --

Two cuffs, two hand portions, two little fingers, and two thumb gussets.  That's the status of the Glubs.

White and beautiful

We've had awful weather.  After a thrilling 12-14" of pure white snow, we finished the week with crippling freezing rain and power outages.













Frozen and treacherous, with trees and wires damaged.

Meanwhile the Glubs are progressing nicely.  Quite fun.  They look downright silly, though, at this point.  Just a little finger on each and waiting for the other 8 to emerge (6 fingers and 2 thumbs, depending on how you label the flexible digits.)

Oh dear, but this picture doesn't show the other little finger.
All the other things are there -- needles, fix-it tool, and
handy row counter.
Yes, two glubs.

Here's the silliest pic of all -- two little fingers waving at one another across the empty landscape of a waiting hand.

Isn't there some sporting team who uses this sign language?

Also working on some Mosaic knitting and finishing up the frilly ruffle thing they call knitting.  That scarf may just be long enough already -- I wouldn't want the wearer to trip over it or have to wrap it 47 times to get it off the floor.   I've experienced just about enuf of that loopy process -- pun intended.  Picture in next post.

Can you tell I am not enamored of this latest fad?

MAMA -- Mine And Mine Alone

Glubs for me!  Wonderful yarn -- such fun to knit, to see how the colors will settle.  I've finished the cuff, the thumb gusset and am working my way up the little finger.

Thumb gusset on the right, under the curve of the pin.
Little finger on the needles.

These are really fun and I recommend glubs to all knitters, even beginners.  They have some challenging aspects but all-in-all are fun to knit.  You can get intro or practice on these techniques, if you knit glubs

• Using double pointed needles and knitting in the round.
• Adding stitches for thumb gusset using the M1 technique.
• Holding stitches until later.
• Adding stitches by backward loop method.
• Weaving in lots of ends, since you will be joining yarn when it's time to knit the thumb.

Here's a close-up of the cuff.  It's a smocking stitch, where the wrap is formed by knitting between, in this case, the 6th and 7th stitches from the end of the left needle.   This makes a very long stitch which you put back onto the left needle and knit along with what was the first stitch on that needle.  Quite fun and isn't it a great look?

At first I was worried that the colorful and varied yarn would keep the smocking from standing out, but I think it works so I decided to stick with it to the end.  I have a dark fuchsia wool coat for winter and the gloves will be a great accessory.  

Freezing rain here, after a horrible and unusually fierce snow storm.  Here in the Pacific NW on the west side of the state we tend not to get so much snow, especially at lower elevations.  But this one has us all at sixes and sevens.  The snow has ended and now the freezing rain begins to cement the slush and trenches formed by brave cars yesterday.  

I'll be knitting.

Promises -- the white shawl is done.

Yup, it's on the blocking board.  The white shawl has had every last stitch knitted and every last edge stitch crocheted into a ruffle.

<<<<<   Before blocking














And on the blocking board --

I blocked in sections.  First I dampened and pinned
the center piece.  Using that as a guide, I folded over
the left section, dampened and pinned.  Finally,
the last section.  The ruffle is in the lower left corner.

I broke another 'rule' but that won't surprise any of you.  I blocked before I wove in the pesky ends.  I just couldn't think of doing anything else with that shawl on my lap. 

Now here's my big 'what if' -- the fiber is mostly cotton, so I'm not sure how much of the shape will be 'set' after it dries.  But it is what it is.  Or rather, it will be what it will be.  It's a que sera sera thing, I reckon.

Meanwhile, I've started a pair of gloves for myself, if you can believe it.  The pattern is from Textured Stitches by Connie Chang Chinchio, published by Interweave Press.  I bot the e-book and have it on my iPad.  The gloves are called Giorielli Gloves; I'm using Regia 4 fadig color (Flusi), with an umlaut on the 'a' in 'fading.'  (I will have to discover the keystrokes for special characters, huh?)

More later but here's a quick peek.

Size US 3 sticks, Lantern Moon from Vietnam -- elegant and
smooth needles.  Yarn is intended to strip or pool but it hasn't
yet made up its mind.  Cuffs use a smocking stitch.
Note the long yellow orange threads across the pink
stitches in the bottom center of the picture.

We have a bit of snow here and more is coming down pretty hard in those flakes as big as small saucers.  Here in the Pacific NW we get all crazy about our snow.  We cheer and make snow angels using the 1/2" that covers our grass.  We worry about school closing and baby-sitting arrangements.  We hope for it and then we hate it.  Supposed to get 5-6" which is like 14 feet for us!

I'll be knitting and working on the notebook.