Remember the mittens?

About 5 or 6 posts ago, I wrote about knitting jags. In particular I wrote about going on a mitten knitting jag. I also prophesized that the jag wasn't over because I had a few more mail outs coming from Blueberry Pie Studio's  mmMarvelious Mitten club. 

Turns out I was right. Here's a pair I finished in the great colourway named Turquoise Frosting   I love it so much!! I think this pair may be mine. 

Since I knit these very quickly while travelling to Lab City to watch Max play in a soccer tournament, I immediately cast on for another. The great thing about these club mail outs is that the yarn comes all balled up and ready to go.  This is great when you are looking for something to knit in a hurry. Since I was going to be spending six hours as a passenger driving to Lab City plus hours watching soccer and then six hours driving back I knew that I had lots of knitting time to prepare for. So I grabbed some blueberry pie studio yarns as I was going through the door. 

This colour is called Farmers Market (I think). These will be for one of my lovely stepdaughters. 

I wasn't done yet! I cast on for another pair in some handspun that I had recently finished.  Remember that Lisa Frank batt that I had spun into a dk weight two ply? Well that yarn knit up into a beautiful fabric. It wasn't nearly as crazy looking as I thought it would be. 

I love these so much. I may keep these for myself too. Hey! I live in Labrador. A girl can never have too many mittens. And these are the exact weight and fit that I like my mitts - especially for driving back and forth to work.

And I still wasn't done. This pair is for Cooper.  Again the yarn is from Blueberry Pie Studios Marvelous Mitten Club. The colour is called sunny tulips. 

So what do you think? I'm getting a good start on winter (which comes very quickly here in Labrador). I think I may be done with the mittens for a little while. 

Mmmmm ...Mittens.

I go on these jags all the time. Usually it's food related. For example, I will only eat a certain cereal for breakfast. I will eat said cereal for six months (or two years even) and then one day I wake up and I'm done with that cereal for a very very long time. And then I move on to the next cereal. (I do the same thing with chocolate bars too but that's a whole other post)

I have never been this way with knitting. I usually have three or four varied projects on the needles at any given time. And they are usually at varied stages of completion.  I have a simple sock for knitting at the arena. I may have a sweater that I knit on while watching TV. And I may have a scarf or a cowl that I'm trying to finish up quickly for a gift. Perhaps there's even a baby sweater in there too. 

But not lately. It seems that lately I am on a knitting jag. I only want to knit mittens. Need proof??

It started with these. (There were two, I swear!!) The yarn is from the club I was telling you about in the last post. The pattern is Susan B Anderson's "Waiting For Winter" and they are the best fitting mittens I have ever made. I love them. I love the stripes.  I love the fit. I love the simplicity of the thumb gusset.  There's nothing clever or unique about this pattern.  But it is good. They were a birthday gift for my daughter and I must admit to being a tiny bit resentful when I sent them to Montreal. Just a little. 

I blame those mittens on the jag that followed. Here they are in no particular order. 

It's seems appropriate that the last mitten is knit in the second shipment of yarn in my Yarn Club that I joined at the beginning of the year. It was the first shipment that I blame for starting this jag. And the great thing is .... I HAVE FOUR MORE SHIPMENTS!!!

I've finally lost my mind!

Let me warn you all first that if any readers are participating in Westknits mystery knitalong ...there are spoilers in this blog post!!!

Okay, now that formality is out of the way, let me go on to tell you why I feel that I've finally lost it. Kev and I just got back from a trip to Toronto!! We had such a great time. We went to two Blue Jays games. Saw the musical "Billy Elliot". Went to the Hockey Hall of Fame, and had our pictures taken with the Stanley Cup!! We ate at some great restaurants and did a little shopping! And I even got to go yarn shopping!! Surprised? No, I didn't think so. Here is what I bought.

Yeah, thats a lot of yarn!! It cost surprisingly less than I had thought it would. There are some yarns there that are totally new to me - yarns that I've never tried before, but have always wanted to try out. And there are some old favorites. There is even a sweaters worth of Cascade 220 in the greatest green colourway ever - destined to become some unknown cabled hoodie. I'll figure out the pattern at some time in the future. Knowing me, it'll be like 2 years into the future, but the way I look at it, I'm saving up all this knitting for my retirement.

I bought all of this yarn at a place called Romni. Let me tell you, this place is stocked. Overstocked in fact. A lot of my friends on Ravelry recommended this place to me, and I'm so so glad that I went, but... the day that we went was sooo humid and hot. And this store is so crowded and big and not air conditioned. It was really difficult to make my way around. So I basically made one sweep through, without really thinking about what I might like to make, and this is what I walked out with. I didn't even look at the books and magazines (of which there appeared to be plenty)

In other news, I was so excited to sign up for a Stephen West mystery Knit along. I've praised this man's genius on the blog before, so its no surprise that when this opportunity came up, I signed up right away. The first mystery knit along that I did was by Lee Meridith and I loved it! It was so much fun that I knew I would definitely enjoy Stephen West's KAL too.

So far, Mr West has not disappointed me! Here are my results to date.

Oh and did I mention that I ordered the yarn from 'A Good Yarn'? And did I mention that Jenny helped me pick out the colours? And did I mention that I couldn't decide on a colour so I bought enough yarn for two shawls? Is the title of the blog post starting to become clearer? No? Well, the cincher for me would have to be, when I got home from Toronto there was a package in the mail. A package from Knitspot!!

Apparently, I signed up (and paid for!) a six month club membership and totally forgot about it! I must be crazy, right?