The Drunks Were Ricocheting

I know it's been awhile since I rapped at ya . . . I've really got to get back in the swing of regular posting. Especially since this is the time of year when I tend to actually finish things, rather than just start and abandon them!

I have been knitting, but it's gotten so dark here (what with it being late November) that it's been a chore to take photos of anything at all. And then yesterday, when we had beautiful, sunny weather, it felt like I spent the whole day in the car. Black Friday, you ask? Why, no--I went to five stores looking for a battery for my iPod remote watch, and to make a very, very long story short, I ended up with a new remote watch, two new batteries, and a running bra that is four inches too small. Let's just say that I was a little off yesterday, and no photos of knitting were taken.

As you can see above, I'm making good progress on the second Appliance Mitten, and the first one fits my friend R____ really well, so now they also have a destination. As soon as they are done, I need to embark on a pair for my friend L_____--for her birthday, I promised a pair of mittens by Christmas, so her mittens will come before the pair I started for myself (which still need a color-order revamp). These are the colors I think I've settled on:

I'm still deciding, though. I have three other colors in my stash that I could mix in: olive, hunter green, and white. But maybe the teal that I'm taking out of my mittens would fit in better here? Hmmm. I'm not in love with the brown, either. Hmmm. I wonder how many more colors the Fiber Gallery has of this yarn? And what other local stores carry it? Somehow, I think that it will be easier to find that that stupid watch battery . ..

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"The Drunks Were Ricocheting:" Wilco, Sky Blue Sky. That's what the zig zags will stand for when I make my own mittens.

I Think You'll Be There When I Fall

I sound like a broken record, but I really haven't been knitting that much in the past couple of weeks. I'm super busy at work right now, but I've also spent some time meeting up with friends in non-knitting settings, and even when I've been at home in the evenings it's been hard to concentrate. But, nine days after confirming that the thumb was too short, I have added seven or eight rows to the thumb and Appliance Mitten #1 is finished! And it seriously looks better propped up against a Ghost Pumpkin than it does with my too-big hand jammed into it.

Before I move on to mitten #2, or go back to the Metropolis kit, I may start a third pair--I recently picked up 11 (yes ELEVEN) balls of the yarn used in this kit, to make more mittens. More mittens! Many more! Each pair of mittens takes about 100g of yarn, so this is enough for about five pair of mittens, and it's cost effective as long as I make at least three pair. This will also give me a chance to sub out the teal that I dislike so much in the Metropolis mittens.

Maybe it's time to clear the social (and work) schedule so I can actually get cracking on all these mittens!
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"I Think You'll Be There When I Fall": Sam Phillips, When I Fall. I haven't seen the Golden Compass, I have no idea what this song has to do with the movie, but it's a great song. Fall = Autumn, even out of context, right?

The Autumn Winds Blow Chilly & Cold

The colors I'm using for this Chevron Love mitten are from a kit called "Vintage Appliance", but really the colors seem perfectly appropriate for fall. The kit & pattern are from Knitterly Things, and the mitten has knit up pretty quickly. There are, however, a few problems:

• The pattern gauge is about 7 st to the inch on a size US3 /3.25mm needle, which is perfectly reasonable. Since I'm a loose knitter, I went down a couple of needle sizes to a 2.75mm needle, and didn't measure my gauge until I was past the thumb gusset. I'm getting about 8-8.5 stitches instead of 7. I knew that it was running a little small on my large hands, but didn't realize that it was all gauge and not just sizing.
• I opted not to run the colors up the inside of the mitten, because I'd rather weave in a bunch of ends than deal with 8 balls of yarn at once. This is one of the reasons I didn't realize the mitten was so small earlier--all those ends make it a pain to try on! They weren't so bad to weave in, though. Once I got past the cuff, I started weaving them in periodically so I didn't have to do all 60-ish at once. And now that I've counted how many ends there were, I think that I may have been insane to cut the ends.
  
• I love, love, love the colors, and there's no chance that this pair will fit me or that I'll rip it out.
• I think that the thumb is a little stumpy, even if these are going to a small handed person. Since my hands are too long for the mittens, it's fruitless to judge this by myself. Before I start the 2nd mitten, I need to have someone try these on and tell me if I need to add length to the thumb. The fact that I'm even imagining this means that I'll probably have to cut the orange tip (I wove in the ends), and I'm afraid that it could get ugly.
  

While I'm disappointed not to be able to jump into mitten #2, and that this pair won't be for me, I do have this for consolation:

Chevron Love Mitten Kit #2: Metropolis! Time to dig out some larger needles!

Thinking About Knitting (doesn't actually get you very far)

It's the busiest time of the year at work, and the last couple of weeks have involved longer than normal hours and higher than normal stress levels. I've been knitting very little, and the knitting I've done has been very basic--work on a black stockinette sweater, or on the Yarrow socks, or a row or two on Damson. I'm itching for something more interesting, but other than starting the Nancy Bush mystery sock (which I'll talk about another day), I've been holding off on anything else in an effort to keep my brain from exploding. Back when it felt more like autumn than it does today, I ordered the yarn above, and I'm itching to get started with it. It the "Vintage Appliance" colorway of the Vesper Chevron Love mitten kit. Now I just need to work up to starting it--maybe once I start getting home before 8pm again?