Just in Time for Spring...

My snowfling mittens are complete. The colors are kind of Easter-ish, I suppose.

I decided to skip the hassle of doing a second set of provisional cast-ons and then having to graft, and just picked up the stitches from the mittens and measured carefully. I did my own thing on the lining because I didn't have the pattern with me when I did the first one but it all came out fine.

They're a little lumpy because they haven't been blocked yet.

And on to the next project. There's a new KAL for Fulmar on Ravelry and I have three cones of Frangipani, which will be more than enough, so I may as well enjoy a little company while I'm knitting.

Snowfling Mittens

My snowfling mittens are half done. Both mittens are done and the ends have been woven in.

That was the easy part. Now I have to pick up the stitches and knit the lining, which I suspect sounds easier that it actually is. I did a provisional cast-on because it didn't make sense to do a regular cast-on and then pick up stitches but now I think I might try knitting the linings separately and grafting the two together. That's a lot of grafting but then I could easily tinker with the linings until they fit correctly. Food for thought.

Point Arena: Not as Bad as I Thought

I wore Point Arena today. I don't hate it anymore but it's never going to be my favorite sweater.

I wish I were more enthused about it but I suppose I can't expect to love everything I make. And now I get to start a new project and that's always fun. 

A Disappointing Week, Knitting-wise

I spent an evening with my old Aran sweater and had no luck splitting it into two pieces. So I decided that I'd frog it, wash the yarn and put it away for a future project. Old acrylic doesn't frog well. I got halfway through one sleeve and realized it wasn't worth it so I threw it in the trash. It felt really odd just throwing it out but there was nothing else to be done with it.

Next on the agenda was finishing Point Arena. I spent a relatively pleasant afternoon sewing it together and then started on the neckband. I had planned on making it a turtleneck but I ran out of yarn. I was sure I had another skein but couldn't find it. So I frogged and reworked it as a mock turtleneck. I finished it, tried it on and hated it. The neck opening was much too wide. I considered taking it apart and making the neck opening smaller and then making it a crewneck but I've spent so much time lately taking finished projects apart and reworking them that I just couldn't do it. So now it's got sort of a ballet neck. It's... strange. It's too  bulky to be so fitted and have a ballet neck. So I think I'll call it done for now, put it away and work on something else.

Ugh.

Random Thoughts and an Updated To-Do List

Point Arena is almost done. I'll finish the second sleeve this week and (maybe) put it together this weekend. If it can just stay cold a little longer, I won't have to wait until next winter to wear it.

I haven't worked on my Snowfling mittens for a few weeks because I was working on Irish Moss and Point Arena, although I have decided to line them with a different color. I used orange yarn for the provisional cast on and thought it looked nice with the bright pink so I ordered some Madelinetosh tosh merino light in citrus. I also got a skein for a pair of socks.

Since the Sublime baby cashmere merino silk DK is working out for the mittens, the ONline Linie 33 Cosmo fingering weight will be used for a pair of Snowfling socks. The two skeins of the ONline in teal that were originally intended to line both pairs of mittens will be used either for socks or gloves.

I have many pairs of socks that are ready for retirement so I need to make myself some new socks. I've never knit a pair of toe-up socks. Now seems like a good time. This decision may have been influenced by the unexpected growth of my sock yarn stash.

The overhaul of my old aran sweater isn't going well. Every right side row has cable crosses, which makes the  length reassignment surgery difficult. I didn't expect to be able to make a few snips, pull out the snipped yarn and have a neatly divided piece of knitting but I figured if I was careful, I'd be able to pick up the stitches correctly at the bottom the cable. I've only done half of the front and about half of the cables are messed up. I'll devote one more evening to this and if I can't figure out how to do this, I'll either toss the sweater or frog it and knit another one.

I sold the yarn for Autumn Rose and Strathspey but I bought yarn (Cascade 220 in ivory) for Little Rivers by Alice Starmore.


Updated To-Do list:

1. Finish Point Arena.

2. Finish Snowfling mittens.

3. Fish or cut bait on the old aran.

4. Make a half-hearted effort to work on Fife.

5. Learn how to do toe-up socks.

6. Make a couple of other pairs of socks as well.

7. Figure out what the next big project will be; time to start swatching.

Let's Do the Whole Garde-Tricot Thing

Irish Moss is done again. It looks exactly the same except it's longer.

In fact, it's probably a bit too long but that's not going to change. I do have another sweater that's about to get shorter.

I knit this back in the eighties. It's the only surviving project I have from before I got married and had kids.  It's huge, in the way that so many things from the eighties were and it's brightly colored in the way that so many things from the eighties were.  The mock turtleneck was knit separately and sewn on; God knows why. Back then, it would not have occurred to me to modify a pattern but it's hard to imagine that this is what the pattern called for. I've hung onto it for all these years because I really like it but I never wear it because it's so big. I was inspired by TECHknitting's post on reworking an old sweater, and have decided to rework the neck and make this shorter. I should have enough yarn to knit a proper turtleneck after I make it shorter but if that doesn't work out, I'll just give it a crewneck.