Later Gator

Wanna see something cute?



Yeah, I'm talking about Max, but the mittens are kinda cute too. I dreamed last night that I knit a pair of these in a khaki green colour and had a red stripe on the mittens where the eyes go. You know, like the Teen Age Mutant Ninja Turtles. Now, I must make them. Which one wears the red? Donnatello? I remember my brother loving them. I wonder would he appreciate a pair of ninja turtle mitten?

The pattern details - "Later 'Gator" mittens from Stitch n Bitch Nation. Knit in the smallest size. Brother Bradley would need a much larger size and some serious pattern altering, so no, I don't think I'll be making them. Knit these in Cascade 220, a work horse yarn that I cannot see any difference in it and Paton's Classic. The mouth is actually knit in Lopi since it twas the only red I had on hand. The teeth are french knots. I finally figured out how to do a french knot.

The designer warns that these mitts will cause impromtu puppet shows. They did indeed. I even ended up getting nipped once or twice. Now I have to make another pair for Morgan. I have this thing about making a pattern twice. I hate doing it.


But, I love Morgan. So, I will make them. I have to find the actual sewon eyes for him though. I glued Max's on, but I'm afraid glue on eyes won't cut it for Morgan, as picky as he is.

Random Sunday or How I love Felted Slippers

In keeping with my once weekly random blog post, here is this week's offering.

• Fiddle head mittens - FINISHED. Totally inspired by Patty finishing her's ahead of me, even though she bought her kit at least a couple of months after me.
• Squirrel Sampler Mittens. By the same designer as the fiddleheads, just not a kit this time. I love, love, love them. They are addicting to knit. I'm planning on making the liners out of knitpicks Suri dream which is a brushed alpaca. In theory this should be nice, but I'm betting (based on the swatch that I knit) it will be a pain in the arse to knit.
• Comfy Cardi - working on the skirt. I will likely finish this by the end of the month. I'm actually spacing this out now. I gave myself 3 months to finish it. It astounds me that I may finish it in a month

• My first FO for 2010 - felted slippers, crocheted at that. Wow, my first finished FO for the year is crochet. And oh, how darling they are.
  

I just love how warm these are. They fit quite nicely. They are a little long in the toes, but thats okay. I felted these in my front loading washer (tis true!) I have to wash them about 3 times to get them down to the size that I wanted. Just in time really because, I have somehow misplaced my French Press felted slippers (see several posts back)

• Upcoming plans? 'Later Gator' mittens from StitchnBitch nation for Max and Morgan
• Lace. I have tonnes of lace weight around, and have yet to knit a single lace weight item. I want to, I really do. I should have added lace to my fiber goals for 2010. I even signed up for the 10 shawls in 2010 group on Ravelry. I'm delusional really. There is no way I can do that, but I'd like to.
  

Random Saturday

In my efforts to blog more, may I present Random Saturday. Every Saturday I will post some photos and descriptions of what I've been up to this week.

First up....Jerky.


Amy is gone back to Sherbrooke. She left a lot of stuff behind. I had to box up much of it. She loves caribou jerky and was hoping that I would send some. I thought it was a very remote possibility as we have no caribou. (not from lack of trying on Kev and his brother John's part) But, as luck would have it, we were invited to Nat and Blairs for supper on Thursday evening for caribou burgers. Blair gave me about a pound of the ground meat with the cure and seasonings all done. All I had to do was put it in my jerky pistol and fire.

Next up are my fiddlehead mittens. I was on a real roll with these babies. I have one finished - lining and all. The second one is done with just the lining to knit. My right wrist is giving me some grief so I've been knitting continental more often to try to allieviate some of the tenderness. Its much faster. I had the thumb gusset all completed and was almost up to the part where I had to decrease for the top of the mitten when I decided to turn the lining into the mitt to see how it was going. Well, you can see what a collosal mistake I made. I put the thumb on the wrong side.


And finally I'll show off my comfy cardigan.

I strongly suspect that I will have this one finished in time for next Saturday's random post. I only have to finish the left sleeve, then pick up stitches at the waist and knit a 'skirt' onto the cardigan. Then I have to seam the underarms and weave in the ends, sew on buttons (find buttons that I like first) and then block. Well, I'm hoping to have most of the knitting done by next Saturday then, I'm not totally sure about it being actually finished, finished, ya know?

2010 Goals - Knitting and Otherwise

Knit some lace - in lace weight yarn. Note - may have to work up to this...errrr...down I guess really. Meghan (of 'Stitch It' podcast fame) likens it to knitting with nose hair. We shall see. My one attemp at knitting in lace weight was an unmitigated failure, but that may have to do with the fact that I was too cocky to use a life line. Won't be making that mistake again.

1. Knit more EZ patterns. (That would be knitting royalty Elizabeth Zimmerman to you non knitters out there). I've been lucky enough to acquire 2 more of EZ's books in 2009. My hope is to have the all some day. I now have 3. I've knit only 4 of her patterns so far. A baby surprise jacket, 2 pairs of mitered mittens, 1 ganomy hat, and one baby surplice jacket. She was brilliant. I want to make a tomten jacket and maybe the seamless hybrid sweater in the future.
2. Continue exploring colourwork. 2009 was a good year for colourwork for me. I am now a convert. I want to continue in this vein and perhaps even knit a full adult sized fair isle sweater.
3. Blog more and include more photos of non knitting stuff. I'm not a photographer and I'm not about to convince myself that its something that I'd like to do or even be able to do well. But, I am living in one of the most pristine places on the planet. I'm not sure for how much longer I can continue to say that sadly. Development is occuring here at too rapid a pace. I'd like to document some of the beauty of Labrador for the next generation to see.
4. Get rid of some of the crap in my home. I'm a pack rat. I've come to terms with it, but the time has come to start getting rid of some stuff. I'm running out of room for my yarn. My china cabinet could really hold alot of yarn. Right now its full of a bunch of crap that is of no value to me - sentimental or monetary. And imagine how pretty a china cabinet full of yarn will look. Especially all the handspun thats tucked away.
5. Knit with my handspun. Really, there is too much of it tucked away. Its too, too precious not to be doing something with it. Even if it is, displaying it in my china cabinet and admiring it. There is a new knitty pattern called 'King of Confidence', that is just calling out to me.

So, that about sums up what I'd like to accomplish in the upcoming year. In keeping with goal #5 here are some photos that I took while at my cabin this weekend. It was pretty frosty.

Happy New Year.

Can you believe its 2010? Not me. Well, I'm not too sorry to see 2009 go. It hasn't been kind to us really, at least the last month. Mr. C is no longer with us. He passed away on Dec 26. He was a kind and gentle soul. I will miss his laughter and his wit. The world is a sadder place without him.

A lot of knitters will chose to cast on a big project at the start of 2010 and this year I decided to do the same. I got 'The Knitter's Book of Wool' for Christmas, and I was anxious to start a new project. I will be making Pam Allen's Comfi Carigan. This cardigan appeals to me as a knitter and as someone who wears a cardigan every single day. I'm making this in Knitpicks City Tweed HW in the colour marsh.

The construction is interesting as it starts from the center back and is worked outwards. The yarn is really lovely to work with. I'm hoping it will wear well, unlike the knitpicks swish that pilled like a son of a bitch after a couple of wears.

Here is what I have so far.



A close up of the tweedy yarn. I just love tweeds.