Wonderful Friday

Oh, darling Friday!  How I have needed you!  I've longed for you!  I'm so glad you're here!!

It's been a long week.  In fact, every day this week, it felt like Thursday to me, so when I woke up in the morning (on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) I spent a minute or two being glad it was Friday...only to crash back down to reality when I realized it wasn't.  To say that it was disappointing is an understatement.  But this morning, it is Friday!

But it's Friday.  Which means jeans and sweatshirt instead of business casual attire.  It means good lunch (as we usually order lunch at work on Fridays).  It means when I get home tonight, I can get in my even comfier clothes and just chill.

I finally finished Mum's mitts last night!  Go me!  I had particular motivation, though, because the yarn for the BFF's mitts arrived yesterday.  And I desperately wanted to get them on the needles and get them made.  But I told myself--very firmly, I might add--that there was no way I could do that when Mum's weren't done.  So, I sat myself down and finished knitting.  I knew it would only take a wee bit of work and a couple of hours, so I commanded myself to finish.  And I did.  Of course, now I'm terribly worried that she won't like them...

Relatives were supposed to come in this weekend, but now they are postponing it a bit.  So I get to relax and unwind this weekend.  I'm going to make a pot of tea and drink it leisurely.  I'm going to knit on the BFF's mitts.  I'd really like to get them done in one weekend, but I think that's really a pipe dream.  But I am going to start them when I get home tonight.  I'm really very excited about the whole thing...as long as I can keep the SSS at bay.  Look for pics in the near future!

Hope everyone has a splendid weekend!

Joss Whedon is My Master

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a devout Whedonite.  If it's got Joss's name on it, I'm on board.  Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Avengers...it doesn't matter what it is, I'm going to love it.  There is no doubt.

Dollhouse is no exception.  I watched it when it was on TV a few years ago...and loved every second of it.  Though I spent the entire time dreading the moment the network cancelled it (they have a reputation).  It did, in fact, get cancelled after only two seasons but at least they had enough warning that they were able to close things out.

At least this time, unlike Firefly, we got an ending.

I've recently pulled out my copy of Dollhouse and am watching the whole thing all over again.  It's so good.  I forgot just how good.  I forgot all the little things, those little bits of funny or information dropped in.

I'm enjoying it immensely while I knit in the evenings.

Happy Birthday Sis!

Holy crap, my baby is all grown up! :)

When my sister was born, I was convinced my mother brought her home just for me.  

There are only three years between us and we have not always gotten along.  But now that we are adults (well, mostly :D) we get along pretty well.  She's always got my back and I sure as hell have hers.  She's wonderful and annoying and bitchy and sweet and, generally, everything a sister is supposed to be.  And I'm glad she's in my life.

Happy birthday, Sis!  May it be filled with awesome!

Remake

Sadly, the BFF's favorite mitts got lost.  Stolen, is more likely.  Someone was admiring them, she accidentally left them behind, and when she went back to get them a short while later, they were nowhere to be found.  The BFF is heartbroken.  

I'm going to make a new pair.

Yesterday, right after I woke up, I got an email that a bunch of yarn was on sale.  Turns out, the exact yarn I needed was not only on sale, but in a combo pack that made it an especially good deal.  I ordered it and it should arrive in a few days.

After I finish the last bit of Mum's mitts, that's next on my docket.

They were sort of a bitch to make the first time around because it was several years ago and I didn't know as much as I do now about the knitting.  It was still new to me at the time.  So as sad as I am that the mittens have gone, I'm also a little bit glad that I get to do them over.  I can make them better this time.  And that's just a little bit exciting.

And as much as I fear SSS, which will come into play twice as I've already made them one and there are two to make, I'm also looking forward to it.  

Something For Me

We have success!  My mitts are done!

I jumped out of bed this morning, a little later than usual, and dove right into the knitting.  I was so close to being finished with my mitts that I couldn't even wait.  I had it about half knitted when I put it down last night so I wanted to get it done.  It took about two hours, with a couple of breaks thrown in, to finish knitting and sew it up.  But now I have a finished pair of hand warmers for me.  I have them on as I type this now.

Seems to be the consensus, though, that everyone is pretty shocked and surprised I actually made something for myself.  It definitely makes me want to make more things for me, though.

So now, I just have to finish the other one of Mom's.  I'm going to work on that now.  There is goings on tonight, celebrating of Sis's birthday, so hopefully I'll be able to finish Mom's tomorrow.  And that's another thing off the docket and I can move on to something else.

Btw?  Sis's present this year is another blanket...but this time I bought it.  She's a very tactile person and it's this kind of faux fur that's really lovely to the touch.  She'll adore it.  But it amused me to give her yet another blanket and this time, it's on time!  I'll giggle about it even if no one else will.  

Mitts!!

Okay, so, technically, I only have one of each done.  But I thought I'd share the patterns with you!

First, Mum's mitt.

I used worsted weight for these.  You need both size 5 and size 8 needles. Because I like to do the ribbing part in a smaller size needles so that it's nice and fitted.  This mitt is worked in the round in whatever your preferred method is.  Gauge isn't super important considering they are mitts.  And it's completely customizable in both length and width.  

Pattern notes: Moss stitch in the round is as follows: rounds 1 and 2--knit 1, purl 1.  Rounds 3 and 4--purl 1, knit 1.

Cast on 40 stitches.  With smaller needles, work in 1x1 rib for at least two inches.  

Switch to size 8 needles and work moss stitch for ten rows.  Here's where we put in the steek.  At the end of round 10, cast on five stitches (either purl cast on or "e" cast on works well) and join to beginning of round.  For the next inch or so, continue working moss stitch on the body of the mitt and knit the steek stitches (which is roughly 8 rounds) and then bind off the steek stitches when you come to them.  Work moss stitch for another 6 or 8 rounds, depending on the length of palm.  Then switch back to size 5 needles, work about an inch of 1x1 ribbing and bind off.

Now comes the scary part.  You have to cut open the steek.  Remember that knitting unravels up and down, not side to side.  There are plenty of excellent tutorials on the web about sewing up and cutting steeks and, to be honest, they would all do a better job teaching you than I.  Sew up to reinforce the steek, then cut right in the middle of the center stitch.  At this point, you can just tack down the lose ends or, like me, crochet a quick single crochet edging around it to give it a bit more finished look and a bit more stability.  (If anyone wants a more in depth tutorial, I can try to help or find you some good vids.  Drop me a line and I'll be happy to help!)

Now, my mitts?  Way easier!  Because I used a DK weight for mine, I used a size 5 needle for the whole thing.  Like I said, variegated yarn does the work here.  I casted on 40 stitches and worked 1x1 rib flat until I had the desired length and bound off in pattern.  Then I sewed up the seam, not stitching where I wanted my thumb hole to be.  It's basically a really skinny tube with a whole lot of stretch.  Just pull it on and it keep everything nice and warm!  Ta Da!

So, really, that's it.  These kind of fingerless mitts don't require a lot of concentration or particularly advanced skill.  If you can knit and purl, you can do this.  The steek is a bit scary, I'll freely admit.  But it works well.  And you can always knit those flat and sew up the seam if it's not something you want to try.  

Anyway, I'm happy.  And if I can keep SSS from kicking in, I'll be good to go!

Freezing Cold Equals The Need For Knitwear

The cold is nigh on unbearable.  I'm serious.  I'm not used to it being quite so cold. When it happened before--not that long ago--it seemed like it wasn't this bad.  We knew it would pass.  And it did.  But then it came back.  Again.  Full force.  Face-freezing, balls-numbing, skin-tingling cold.  So much so that you need slippers and sweatshirts and blankets even when you're just snuggled up in your house...unless you can somehow afford to heat your house to 80 degrees.  Most of us can't.  I didn't even want to pull my hand out of the blanket cocoon to turn the page, that's how bad it is.  Made me long for my own pair of fingerless mitts.

So I started them.

Haven't quite finished Mum's yet but that didn't seem to matter.  I am always lamenting the fact that I don't have my own pair.  I'm always intending to make a pair for myself.  And I never do.  So I said, screw it.  I'm making them.  Yes, I have to finish Mum's by her birthday, but I knew, I knew, if I didn't start my own, I never would.  So I did. 

Mine are nothing fancy.  Pretty variegated yarn, but that's the extent of the excitement.  I'm working them flat...just working a 1x1 rib until they are the right length and then sewing them up the side.  The cables and the special stitches are for the special people in my life.  I just want something to cover up my hands to keep them warmer.  It's only January and I know there is going to be more cold to come.  Maybe not quite this cold, but still.  I need a little something.  It's even hard to knit right now, because my hands are so cold.  So I'm working as quickly as I'm able to get mine done, then I can finish Mum's.

Hopefully, by this weekend, I'll be able to post pics of two completed pairs of mitts.

**update--it's -11 this morning.  Negative.  Eleven. By noon it's supposed to warm up...all the way to 1.  I really wish I could knit faster and was able to finish those mitts last night.**

Steek Success!

Well, mostly.   As with most things I do, in practice doesn't work quite as well as in theory, so there is a bit of less-that-perfection going on with mitt one (which is completed).  But I learned from it!  And in all honesty, if mitt two turns out vastly better (it's about half way done) then I'll probably make mitt three to replace mitt one.  

Now, I always intended to do a round of single crochet around the thumb hole to give it a bit of stability.  Which I did, and it looks fine.  Mostly.  See, two things happened.  I made the opening for the thumb a little bit two long, which i fixed with a bit of sewing.  But the other thing I did was not make the steek itself enough stitches.  I used three, thinking it was a small opening and I could cut right up the middle stitch.  I did the cutting part perfectly, of which I am very proud.  The stitches, when you do this, do come apart a little, but that's waste an will be tucked back so it's fine.  Only really, it should have been a few more stitches, I think five, to give it a little leeway.  I had to get a bit creative to hide the reinforced sewn parts and I needed more fabric.  So, I learned that I need to make the next steek wider.  Which I will.  

So look for pictures and pattern in the next couple of days.  The knitting actually goes fairly quickly so if I can motivate myself, I might just get it finished today.  

All in all though, I like this method and it works well for gauntlet style fingerless mitts where there's no thumb gusset.  I like it a hell of a lot better than knitting it flat and sewing up the seam, that's for sure.  

And I'm always happy to add a new technique to my repertoire!

Adventures in Steeking

There's this technique in knitting, when knitting a garment in the round, called steeking.  Basically, this allows you to knit, say, the entire body of a sweater without  having to worry about arm holes and the like until the end.  It's especially useful when knitting Fair Isle so that you don't lose the pattern.  You create a section of plain stockinette, do a little reinforcement sewing, and then you cut open the stitches to create the hole you want.

Cut the knitting, you say?  Yes, you heard me right.  You cut the yarn.  This works because knitting unravels up and down, not side to side.  If you're careful, then all you do is create a hole and not damage your work.  

Why am I talking about steeks?  Well, I decided to be brave and use them on Mum's mitts.  Last night, as I was getting to the portion where I'd have to start the thumb hole, I started thinking about it.  I was feeling lazy and I didn't want to do the whole gusset thing.  It's not hard, but I just didn't want to take the time.  My brain suddenly remembered steeks.  And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this might be the perfect opportunity to use them.  

Now, I've seen them done.  I've read about them.  But I've never actually done a steek myself.  So, I'm a bit nervous about how it's all going to turn out.  But I really think it will work.  As long as I'm very careful about what I'm doing when I get to the cutting part, I should be just fine.

It's a bit scary, but I'm feeling brave.  And I've already got half of it done, so it's not like I can turn back now.  Wish me luck! 

Beginning The Mitts

The yarn is red.  Bright freaking cheerful red.  It's soft to the touch and a dream to work with.  It's hard wearing and won't pill or felt.  It's perfect for Mum's mitts.

Red is her signature color.  It's her favorite.  She wears a lot of it.  She's always the red token when we play board games.  And whenever I see red, I think of her.  Her mitts can be no other color.

I scrapped the yuck that I had started for her months ago.  It got tossed in the trash with a triumphant "take that!"  Then I cast on and began anew.  This time, I'm working them in the round, which means I have to work a thumb gusset but that's no big deal.  I have yet to decide on a pattern for body of the mitt, but I'm thinking moss stitch would work perfectly.  Now, normally, moss stitch annoys the piss out of me.  I think it's gorgeous, but it's a pain to work.  At least for me.  And I think that's because it takes too much concentration and I'm constantly double checking myself.  But see, that's when you work it flat.  I'm constantly having to look and second guess and say "Now, is this a row I start with knits? Or is it purls?"  And then I invariably cock it up and throw the whole thing off, get frustrated, and, usually, scream.  But in the round?  Oh, in the round it's a whole other thing. So very much easier to keep track of what your doing when you aren't constantly turning the work!

That being said, increasing for the thumb gusset would sort of be a bitch in pattern.  I'm going to spend some time contemplating that.  Because you do increase two stitches on the increase rows, it might not be so bad.  But the gusset could be in stockinette, the pattern on the body of the mitt, with ribbing at both ends, and that would work just fine.  
Or I could just stick a cable running up the middle.

We shall see.

More Randoms

--I took my contacts out last night because they were bothering me but I wasn't quite ready to go to bed.  I figured that I'd still be able to read on my Kindle.  I had to hold it so close to my face that I was going cross-eyed trying to see.  I broke down and put on my glasses.  It never occurred to me to enlarge the font.

--My boobs look fantastic today...is that TMI? :)

--This happened in my brain on the drive to work this morning, exactly like this: "I'm glad they finally fixed that huge pothole in the road.  Except I don't know why they did it. It will just come back.  All this cold and then warming up, it's just going to crack open again.  The only way they'd really be able to fix it is to resurface that entire section.  They should do that. No!  No they shouldn't.  Then I'd have to take the long way.  I'll just avoid the pothole when it comes back."

--I read a book last night that was so utterly and completely horrible that it's made me think I'll stop reading the series.  And at 20 some odd books in, that's a hard thought to take.  I'm not going to say what it was or what the series is, because other people probably loved it and that's not nice of me.  But yeah, it was awful and I wish I hadn't killed two hours of my life and wasted the money.  Very rarely do I ever think those things because I actually like to read bad stories sometimes...the kind that are so bad they're good.  I can't really explain my love of them.  But this just made me pissed off.

--I started a pair of fingerless mitts for Mum for her birthday but I've decided I hate them and I'm going make them differently.  If I can manage to stay away from the books tonight, I'll probably start that.  Four weeks to finish them.

--I really, really want some cookies.  This is no surprise to anyone, least of all me.

--Work is incredibly insane.  I can't even begin to describe the insanity of it.  It doesn't look like it's going to calm down anytime soon. I'm doing my best to persevere.

--I wrote this on my lunch instead of eating because I couldn't get the random out of my head.  It's okay, I'll eat at my desk later.   

 

The Dark Place

Sometimes, I go to a dark place.  And when I'm there, it gets very, very dark.  I was there last week.  I didn't know how to handle it or what to do.  But with some help, I managed to find my way to the light again.

This weekend wasn't overly productive.  I finally put away Christmas.  Which was a bit sad in its own right.  But overdue.  And it actually helped with my mental space as well.  The physical act of clearing and organizing helped me do the same in the headspace too.  I'm feeling so much better now.  

And, though I'm not overly fond of cleaning, I did a bunch of that this weekend.  Dusted, vacuumed, mopped the floors, changed the sheets on the bed, and general all around tidying.  Earlier this week, it was below freezing--below zero on a couple of days actually--but this weekend it warmed up to the 40s and it actually felt like a heat wave.  I could open the windows a bit and let in a little fresh air.  It was a satisfying on a bunch of levels.

I even took a nap both days, which you may recall, is one of my guilty pleasures.    

At any rate, I'm past the dark place and things are light again.

Don't Panic

I've got a lot going on right now.  I won't be around for a bit.  Don't worry, I have my towel.  

See you next week!

Starting The Year Right

Actually finished Auntie's shawl on time!  Though I completely spaced on taking a picture.  Still, it got finished and she simply adored it.  She wrapped it 'round her shoulders straight away and had to pet it (the yarn is super soft) and loved the shawl stick I had bought to go with it.  She also knew instantly that it was from me, though there was nowhere that I had written my name.  I got a weird sense of pleasure from that, knowing that she opened it and knew straight away who it was from.  The logical part of my brain knows that it was obvious but when have I ever listened to that part?

Of course, because she's a yarner herself, we had to talk about the yarn and the stitches used and how it was done.  Mom's eyes kind of glossed over for a minute, which always amuses me, because she's actually a knitter herself, though she hasn't indulged in the craft in years.  She found quilting and that's her main crafting passion now.  Anyway, it's always fun to discuss that stuff with Auntie.  

Of course, that made me want to make more things because talking about yarning makes me want to do it.  I have yet to start something new though.  Mom's birthday is in about five weeks and she's getting a pair of fingerless mitts.  So I have to get those on the needles.  

And Izzy's shawl.  Sigh.

Again, there are not enough hours in the day.  

Work is kind of a mess right now, because there's been some big changes that had to happen but really it's just a pain in the ass for everyone.  So that's a stressful eight hours.  And I have many words I want to put on the page.  And, of course, I wan to yarn all the things.  I need a Time Turner.  Or something.

At any rate, I think I started the year off right in the yarning department by getting that first project done on time and under budget (lol).  And Sis?  This year Sis is not getting anything handmade.  I've had her presents, store bought, tucked away for a couple of weeks now.  It feels like cheating to me.  But there the last two years, as you know, her birthday presents were completed 11 and 10 months late.  I am not doing that to myself again.  Er, I mean, to her.  I'm not doing that to her again.  *nods*

Keep Away From Fire

That's the warning label on my new scarf.  It's got the directions for laundering and then "keep away from fire."  I would have thought that that, in particular, was common sense.  And it makes me wonder what, exactly, happened to make the manufacturer feel the need to put that warning label on the scarf.

Overall, I think it's pretty good advice in general.  Keep away from fire.  You don't want to get burned.  It hurts. 

A New Year

I don't do resolutions.  Honestly, I think they are crap.  I give a lot of credit to those who make them and keep them.  I'm not one of those people.  And I'm not one to set myself up for failure.  Invariably, if I make a resolution that I can't keep, I feel like shit because of it.

I like the word goal so much better.  It's something to strive for.  And something to achieve.  But if you don't get there, it's not necessarily a failure.  As long as there was trying.  Maybe this doesn't make sense to you, but it's an important distinction for me.  Goals I will happily have.  And not just at the new year.

That being said, my biggest goal last year was to get published and I actually managed to succeed at that.  I also had a goal of getting projects done well before their deadlines.  And I did pretty well at that as well...even if a few of them didn't manage to get done on time.  And a couple of times I was up until the small hours getting them done.  But all that aside, I did pretty well.

This year, my goal is simple.  My goal is to be a happier me.  In whatever form that takes, I'm going to strive to complete that.  It means trying not to be so hard on myself and not to worry so much.  It means accepting my limitations and faults.  

A new year but the same me.  Just a bit happier and more content.