WHooooo's There?

My very first mitten! Adorable - but sooooo far from perfect. The best part was finding those vintage buttons in my stash for his eyes! Now that's perfect; the rest of the mitten....not so much.

Thanks for the pattern Manda!

Sock Happy

The sock addiction still has a stranglehold on my knitting. I've made 9 pairs so far and still want more more more.



These are a gorgeous pair from The Big Book of Socks by Kathleen Taylor. Which in my opinion, is the best sock pattern book I've come across. So many patterns that I just have to try.



(Sorry for the sideview - I don't know why it's doing this - it's right side up on my computer, but turns when I upload)

I've gifted these beauties to my mom and she loves them! I've recently convinced her to put down the dishcloths and try her hand at socks. So far so good - she's up (down?) to the heel turn and they look great.



Watching her learn the pattern and work with those itty bitty needles and fine yarn for the first time brings back memories of my first pair. Not good memories, but memories all the same.

Yummy!

After trying this pattern using some sort-of bulkier yarn and failing, I was really anxious to try it again with a finer weight. Much easier and fun too!

Unfortunately, I didn't pay close enough attention and on my right hand glove, I am short one repeat of the pattern. URGH!! I feel very uneven. Well, I never expected to win any knitting awards that's for sure!

Fingerless Gloves

My first fingerless gloves! Definitely won't be the last; my daughter Meghan has already requested these:

in this yarn:

Fun!

This past weekend I headed out to a fiber festival and only bought one skein!

The wool is from Francis - a resident sheep at Knox Farm in East Aurora, NY (where the festival was held). The temptation to buy buy buy was huge, but I just kept reminding myself of all the yarns I have patiently waiting for me at home and I was able to resist going overboard.

I find that it stresses me out to have all this 'stuff' and not the time to do work with it. I almost feel wasteful. And then on top of that, I ran into my old friends from the Amherst Museum Lace Guild, and started feeling horrible thinking about all my lace bobbins and threads and lace UFOs that are hibernating in my studio-yikes. Anyway....

Aren't these knitted fish hysterical?
Enjoy your day and knit as much and as often as you dare!

MoNKeY mAdNeSs

Love this pattern!

It's the Monkey Socks from Cookie A. I really wasn't too sure I would be able to do it, since the pattern is a chart and I (in my limited knitting knowledge) had no clue on charts. Luckily the dears over at the knittingdaily.com KAL were of immense help as I stalked their KAL postings.

One suggestion was to write out the instructions and ignore the chart completely; another color-coded the different stitches so the chart resembled a tile mosaic. I did type up the pattern in the standard p4-k3-yo type of morse code of knitting, but found I was able to decipher the chart without any problem at all. What a thrill it was to get to the end of each row and have the right amount of stitches! Yippee!

I was afraid the solid color yarn would be a yawn and I would get bored. Nope. Quite the opposite. The pattern keeps urging me on - 'come on, one more row....' All was good, until.....

You have GOT to be kidding me! So Annoying!! When I told my mom about it, she immediately said "well, don't you re-wind your skein before you begin?" Um, no. Never even thought about that. I will now.

But I was happy that I know enough about knitting now to be able to un-do a row and fix this weak link. I'm down to the shaping of the gusset on the second sock and I find myself looking ahead to the next pattern I want to try and deciding which yarn in my stash would be best with which pattern. Oh, the possibilities are endless!

I'm just itching to get back to it, but to do so I need to disturb my new little one who has taken a liking to my knitting bag.


Oh, I guess I can wait a little bit ........

Stocking Up

Even though I am still working away on my latest pair of socks and still have one skein of sock yarn left, I couldn't pass up a 20% off coupon from my LYS.

I've only used patterning yarns before in my socks, so I thought I would force myself to but some solid colors. I came across this KAL from knittingdaily.com that I really want to try, and I'm thinking the solid yarn will show the pattern off much better. It will be a bit of time before I get to them though ~sigh~ I'm just to the heel flap of my second sock on this pair.

I was very tempted to set these aside and get started on the Monkey sock pattern, but I resisted. Last thing I need is another UFO !

A set for Ellie

My mother-in-law has always like the color blue, so I made this set up for her. The square cloth is from the yahoo! mid-month dishcloth group and the other is the same bobble pattern that my mom gave me. The bobbles were much easier this time around and I actually like making them.

We are off for vacation - camping at Allegany State Park in New York. A most-beautiful place! I'm bringing along sock supplies and a dishcloth pattern, just in case I suffer withdrawl......