As much as I love my job (and I really *do* love my job!), I really enjoy the times when I can sit back, prop up my feet, and knit for long stretches of time. Due to the fact that we didn’t get to go to Ohio this year, I had more time than usual this holiday to do just that.
My first project was a pair of wristwarmers called “Alice’s Mitts”. I haven’t seen the movie, but apparently the character Alice in the movie “New Moon”, wore a pair of stunning teal and tan wristwarmers. Lots of Ravelry members have gone absolutely gaga over them! Some members created patterns. A couple members dyed yarns for their online stores.
Last year, I knitted “Bella’s Mittens” for my niece Emily, so this year, I decided to make a pair of Alice’s Mitts for my niece Jennifer. (Next year, I’ll have to make something for my niece Kelsey! I wonder if she likes the Twilight series too…)
So I ordered the yarn from Bristol County Dyeworks and printed off the pattern from Ravelry so that I could work on them on the way to Ohio. (One year, I cranked out two scarves and a hat on the way to Ohio. A pair of wristwarmers would be nothing to finish during the drive!) The drive didn’t happen, so I spent the two days before Christmas working on them.
As projects go, this one was a cake-walk. The only difficulty was that the original 30 stitch cast-on wasn’t enough given my tight knitting and the fact that the yarn was more a light-worsted than worsted. I frogged and did it again with 35 stitches.
The wristwarmers are now done and fit fabulously like the ones from the movie. And talk about soft! If I ever need a non-scratchy merino, I’ll be looking to Bristol County Dyeworks again!
Alice's Mitts
Figuring out the next project wasn’t too difficult. When Little Grump came in to the house the other day, I was pleased to see that she was still wearing the pretty pink Porum that I made for her several months back. Then… The horror! I noticed a hole in the hat! I looked carefully and noticed that there wasn’t just one but FIVE holes in it! It was also starting to pill pretty badly.
Sigh… Oh well… At least she enjoyed it! And she wore it quite a bit. But no daughter of mine was going to run around in a holey hat!
For ages, I’d wanted to make Ysolda Teague’s Gretel hat. It had so many cables that I knew that it would be a challenge. I also knew that I didn’t want to do it unless I could really concentrate on it.
Thanks to the long holiday and a seemingly endless supply of college Bowl games, I knew that I’d have plenty of time to tackle the project.
I have to say that I’m really impressed with Isolda Teague’s patterns. This isn’t the first one I’ve made, and like the Elijah pattern, the Gretel pattern was well laid out and contained all of the information needed to actually complete the project.
The only problem I had occurred when I was about 2/3 of the way through. I noticed that I’d mis-crossed a cable about three rows down and nearly hyperventilated! Little Grump looked at the error and said, “Well, I doubt anyone will notice!” I would though. So I took a few deep breaths, dug out an extra pair of DPNs, dropped the afflicted stitches down to the error, corrected it, and then nearly sprained my arm while patting myself on the back. I was so excited! I challenged Little Grump to find the correction, but she quickly brought me back to earth by saying, “But mom, I couldn’t find it the first time! How can you expect me to find your correction?”
Anyway, I’ve finished Gretal now. As I told my friend Wendy, knitting it was like running a marathon, but it was really fun. Here’s a picture of it pre-blocking.
Gretel - Pre-blocked
Next up? Something that is a little more mindless. I’m thinking of another pair of mitts. This pair will be done in the same yarn as Little Grump’s new hat. Maybe I can finish them before vacation ends!