Flower for your thoughts?

I have none of my own right now.

Still chasing my tail through number land and attempting to get a ton of copy and paste type stuff finished. Let us not mention the large white knitting with many holes in it. The child will likely be wearing it with the needles hanging off one end for her baptism. Must go knit.

Psst....

Guess what else I have going on!

Peaceful mornings.

I find that I really treasure these mornings where I don't have to jump out of bed and rush myself and Girly out the door. Very nice. Of course we have to go in a bit, but we got to sleep in for a while and we don't have to start rushing right away.

Gives me time to do things like take pictures of a beautiful blue sky on a day where it isn't way-too-frickin-cold*C. It's only -17*C/1.5*F you know, warmish.

With a forecast of some more snow this afternoon. The lakes should come up pretty darn high this spring. Though there are places that have had more snow than we have. That's just over 10 feet for those who don't use the metric system or are not familiar with metric measurements.

This stole is coming along nicely. Although I am beginning to think that I won't get it done when I want. It just may take a good bit longer than I had thought it would.

Changeling

A pattern of a sorts.

You'll need 2 skeins of worsted or aran weight yarn. I used Twilley's Freedom Spirit (worsted) and Classic Elite Wool/Llama (aran) they are each about 190m/205yds or more. I used about 7/8ths of the Freedom Spirit skein and 3/4 of the Classic Elite skein for women's medium mitts. Mine are fairly narrow and long so they just fit my hands.


I used 4mm needles on the hand and 2.5mm on the thumb. I would have preferred a more tightly knit fabric though since I can feel the wind a bit. Once the inside felts with wear they'll be perfect though so no worries there. The windy part may also be that the Twilley's is so much lighter in weight than the Classic Elite and if I had used two aran weights I might not have this issue. I didn't take gauge so you'll have to go with a gauge that will fit your hand. You can do a gauge swatch and the math or you can just start knitting and try on as you go. One guess which route I took.

I used a generic mitt pattern that was divisible by 4 (cast on 40 for my hands) in colour A. Knit the cuff as long as you like in 2x2 ribbing or whichever stitch you prefer. My cuffs are fairly long. I really hate it when your sleeves move a bit and you get that gap at the wrists.

When you get to where you want your hand to start, add colour B. For the first row of the repeat you will be stranding and the following two rows you will be mosaic knitting. If you are making a thumb gusset, you will need to increase by four stitches on each stranded row (I made mine 12sts) in order to maintain the pattern. I also cast on 4 in the row above my thumb to help with the laddering above the thumb gusset stitches and to keep it nice and loose there. If you are not making a thumb gusset, you'll need to increase a few stitches (again, divisible by four) just above the cuff to help the mitt fit your hand better. You can do this easily on the first round of the repeat once you've added the second colour, or you can just knit a plain round right after the ribbing and add them evenly then.

Repeat

Row 1 - Colours A & B - K2 with A, K2 with B. Repeat to end of round.

Row 2 - Colour A only - K2, S2. Repeat to end of round.

Row 3 - Colour B only - S2, K2. Repeat to end of round.

Row 4 - Colours A & B - K2 with B, K2 with A. Repeat to end of round.

Row 5 - Colour A only - S2, K2. Repeat to end of round.

Row 6 - Colour B only - K2, S2. Repeat to end of round.

Repeat Rows 1-6 to desired mitt length from base of hand to tip of fingers. Follow a generic thumb pattern for either a gusset or an afterthought thumb. That's about what I did. The colour pattern will blend on the hand no matter which route you choose as long as your thumb stitches are divisible by four. That way it doesn't interrupt the pattern on the hand.



Once you are at the top of the fingers, you will need to decrease by four on each side of the hand every time in order to maintain the look (total of 8 sts decreased each round). Best done on the stranded row in order to make things easier. I did this three times then Kitchenered the last 16 sts. I think next time I would finish the last repeat before the decreases (I did 9.5 full repeats) and seam the top since the Kitchenered top lets in a good bit of wind and a seam would be more solid and therefore more wind resistant.

Weave in your ends and all that stuff once you've finished and voila! For once, a Changeling a mother would love to have gotten.


My little sweet loves her new hair by the way. She still asks when it will grow back, but then she fluffs her sides and declares that her short hair is so pretty. Naturally, we agree.

Ahh. It's been good.

Today is Family Day and we sure needed it this time around. Between skating lessons, gymnastics and work, a whole day at home without having to go anywhere has been just what the doctor ordered. Peaceful and pyjama'ed with a bit of knitting to make everything right.

I am liking this project. It's looking as good as I had hoped. With over 300 sts per row, it just may kill me though. I did not realize how long it would take to purl one row nevermind work lace on a row that size. Good thing I started it fairly early. I hope.

Just for fun, this is my need-a-break-from-teeny-tiny-yarn project. Because you might as well go from one extreme to the other. Laceweight on size 3.25mm to chunky weight on 38mm needles.

Someone else has decided that she would also like to try out extremes. Her hair was beautiful long. Yesterday morning, she decide that since Momma had been on about taking her to a stylist to get her hair tidied up a little, she would help out. It's going to be a heck of a first haircut at the stylists.

So far, it works.

Knock wooden needles. I managed to come up with something I like and cast on. Way too many stitches. I managed to make it work for me though and the first row of the pattern worked out just so. I'm happy. Which means disaster is peering round the corner waiting to fall on my head. If I keep shooting the evil eye off in that direction and counting stitches compulsively I may manage to get through this without hurting myself. I hope.

White out and in.

This morning the snow was falling thick and fast. I'm very glad that we didn't have anywhere to go or anything to get done out of doors. The perfect kind of day to stay in and clean knit.

I have the graph paper ready to go and some needles picked out. Let's hope this works as well as I am hoping that it will and I can get it done by Easter. Let the delusions games begin!

Not quite a week.

Still not much to show. I worked a bit on this scarf and oy. I need to stick to basic stuff for a while. I wanted the cables on this It Ain't Plain, Jane scarf to wave rather than cross but I seem to have gotten confused.

Often. It's an utter mess or it was before I pulled it back to the part before I started turning it into a testament to a confused mind.

It seems that the more new skills I learn at work, the more old skills fall out my other ear. Soon I will be unable to speak in coherent English, but by damn, my spreadsheets will be gorgeous and balance everytime!

So before I turn into a blithering idiot, I will post this to remind me of what charms me.



"Your exact moment of the day is always changing, because the sun never sets at exactly the same time. You are the romantic moments just after sunset when it's still light enough to see your way around outside, and the sky is a blend of reds, pinks, purples, and blues. At this time of day, the light has a special way of making even rundown buildings looks like works of art. You're like that, too – you're always finding beauty and magic in unexpected places. Not only will you wish on the first star you see, somewhere inside, you actually expect that wish to come true." - I do, you know. It's why I try to wish things that really could happen someday and don't add time limits.

Thanks for the quiz Suzanne, I needed this little bit of winsome poetry to bring the magic of everyday back to mind. Darn cold season.

Off to dream in bank rec's and tab delimited files. I really hope the dreams that don't contain numbers and Excel come back soon. I miss the pretty flowers and weird yarn/knitting photos that used to creep into the mind's eye at night. Hanging upside down from a tree limb to get the right lighting angle on that lace shawl I whipped up in a fortnight while the children teach the dog how to join to knit in the round without all those annoying ladders seems like a normal type of dream now.

Okay, who took last week?!

It seems when you start adding stuff to do after work, time just vanishes in a whirl of learning new stuff, meetings, skating and the sleeping thing. It seems like yesterday I was telling all of you the exciting news around here, but the date on my last post says Monday! Oy.

So today, it's back to Saturday Sky especially since there is little to invisible knitting going on around here. I know it's Sunday, but I did take the pictures on Saturday before all the life stuff got in the way of the blog. Ah well. Eventually I will get the hang of this working outside the home and only having a bit of time to do the house stuff. Thank God for a husband who doesn't mind helping out and doesn't have to be hounded to do so.


Light snow flakes are falling. Yesterday and today the weather has warmed up and we are out of the deep freeze for a little while anyway.

Even the post is letting up on the hail of bills and letting little pretties like these stitch markers I won on Kate's blog a while ago, through.


Hopefully it won't be a week before I have something knit to show.