Mittenpalooza

As promised, I present to you the finished socks, originally started as a test knit, but paused because you can't see the cute pattern.  

   

    

Ta-da!  Socks!

After those were done, I made some mittens for Middle, because Chicago is cold forever.  These were made holding two yarns together, the bright green and maybe a zauberball?  I'll have to see if I can remember what I did.  At any rate, they're nice and squishy and warm and dense.  Warm hands for the win!  The yarn is the Seersucker mitten pattern.  It's super easy and the mittens are great.

I knit these mittens at the finals for a ballet competition (ADC/IBC) for which Smallest qualified for back in January.  This was in late March.  At the competition, Smallest auditioned for ballet companies and was offered some trainee positions.  After MUCH debate, she deferred her college acceptance for a year and took an offer from Sarasota Ballet.  She is very, very happy with her decision, and we are hoping that they love her as much as she loves them, and will offer her a second year in the spring.

This is the hat and mittens that I made for Smallest.  We bought the yarn in New York (Knitty City?) when we were there for a college audition in January or February?  I knit the hat first, I think.  I suspect it's also the Bankhead pattern - so simple and easy! - and then I got more yarn to make the mittens.  

Too much is never enough!  We went to visit Jeff's older daughter in NYC over President's Weekend in February and it was still cold, so I asked her if she would like mittens?  Of course she would!  We went to another NYC yarn shop and Sarah picked out this beautiful smoky purple colored yarn (Malabrigo, I think?).  I ended up getting a second skein so I could hold it double to knit the mittens.  They are still nice and toasty, so success!

This is our remaining cat, Ginny McSqueakins, sleeping on the shawl I recently finished.  It was still in progress here, but she loves wool anything and needed to have a snuggle on it when I had to get up.

Here's the finished shawl, I took a nicer picture of it in my office last week.  I like the colors a lot.

Smallest has asked for more socks for Christmas, so here is a Daisy sock prior to finishing the toe.  I've adopted the Finchley graft to close up the toes and love it so much!  It's easy to remember and easy to execute.  This is the same yarn that I used to knit the sample sock shown at the top of the page.  It showed the stitches nicely, but I wanted it to be something else.  I'm not crazy about this pattern with the yarn, but Smallest approves, and the socks are for her, so there we go.

Oh! I also made a small sock for the cat that belongs to Smallest's roommate.  Apparently the kitten really likes her knit socks.  I would rather the cat, Cannoli, not play with the socks, so I made one just for the her!  She likes it, so I'll make another.  It was super fast.  Here she is playing with the sock.

So now I'm working on Sock #2, and then it will be hat time for Sarah and her husband.  Middle would also like hats for themselves and their boyfriend, but we haven't selected patterns or yarn yet.

Thinking about Halloween and holidays.  I'll be visiting Smallest in just a couple of weeks, and then there are holidays, another Florida visit to see Smallest and Lauren, and holidays, and seeing kids.  It should be nice and busy!

Margie

 

Worst post-er ever!

 How can it be that the last post was in January?!  I thought for sure I'd posted since then.

Alas.

Okay, so projects mentioned in the January post.  I don't have a picture of the socks for Middle.  I don't even know which socks they were! (looking back, I see they were the tiger striped socks, no finished pictures of those)

Lauren's hat

The Hue Blanket!

Awakening of Flora

Skirt

Bodice

On the dancer!

I did finish the Almina shawl, but I didn't take any pictures, so I'll get one of that.  I do have a picture of the socks mentioned.  They were from a test knit.  I didn't think they would show the pattern well, so I paused to knit the test sock in another color which worked better.  I have since finished the pair and they are nice!  I need to see if I have a sweater picture from Smallest's sweater as well.

In the past nine months, Jeff's mother has passed away, and our grey fluffy cat, Gandalf, died as well.  Smallest has left for a ballet trainee-ship and is having a wonderful time.  Middle is still in Chicago, and The Boy has moved back home.  He's in a program that trains kids to design video games.  The initial evaluation period was not awesome, but he made it through to the regular classes and seems quite excited (for him) so that seems to be going well.  

My shoulder is all better, and I'm working with a trainer once a week to do things with weights to help my body.  I work out 2ish times a week on my own and that's good for me.  I've been diagnosed with anemia, which has been around for at least a couple of years now, but I've finally found an iron pill that works better with my stomach than others, so hopefully in a couple of months I'll be doing better.  

I've finished another shawl and some happy yellow socks.  There was also a lot of hat/mitten knitting this spring.  I'll post those soon.  Right now I'm working on a summer top for me, and starting Xmas knitting.  I have hat and sock requests so far.  Always good to have projects.

Catherine and Darren went camping in Big Bend National Park in Texas last week.  I haven't checked in to see if it was fun, but I suspect it was.