Fall Break Fun

We’ve spent the past week on a “staycation” for Fall Break. All 3 of us have been off for the whole week, and it’s been a great opportunity to do stuff around our area that we would normally try to squeeze in on a weekend. 

Early in the week, we headed out to one of our state parks and had a gentle, but still interesting, walk around a lake. It was just the right level for taking our 5-year-old with us. 

While we were walking, I got some glamour shots with an interesting tree of BK’s newly finished Gryffindor mittens, made with the lovely BaH Yarns in Bravery. I used the Simple Children’s Mittens pattern, which is free on Revelry. 

I also took a picture of my mitts – an old favorite. I still wear these lots and I love the orange color, especially for October.

The trees were just barely beginning to change, which was lovely.

I couldn’t help myself and took a lot of pictures. 🙂

We also went pumpkin picking. We went to a small patch, which kept decisions to a minimum, while still being fun. I went for this top left one – I call him “Bumpy.” This sent my daughter on a quest to find her own bumpy pumpkin, which she promptly named “Punk” (short for “punkin”). We aren’t going to carve the bumpy ones – we selected other ones to carve. 

I wanted to buy tons of these beautiful little gourds at the pumpkin shop, but I restrained myself. 

Perhaps the hit of the entire fall break was “Donut Morning.” My daughter literally wrote songs about her excitement for going to a donut store for breakfast. I came up with the idea because her absolute favorite thing about our summer Canadian holiday was going to Tim Horton’s every morning and having a donut. She never gets donuts for breakfast at home, and this was a BIG DEAL for her.

We also made an apple pie near the end of the week. We tried to make it spooky with pumpkin and bat cut-outs, but they lost a lot of definition after baking. I think next time, I will try Julie’s method – it is so beautiful! 

We finished out our week with a trip to an ice hockey game. We’d never taken BK before (and rarely go ourselves), but she is always pretending to play hockey (I have no idea why). 

Her favorite part? “The flames!”

But we did have a good time, and she did actually enjoy some of the hockey, though we had to duck out early because it was bedtime. 

All in all, we had a great Fall Break! I’m glad we all got some dedicated time together, while it was still nice weather out and we could really enjoy it. 

Hope you’re all having a fabulous October! 

Three things I’ve finished recently

Hi everyone! It has been a couple of weeks full of changes. I made the decision recently that I would become a full-time stay-at-home mom to my 4-year-old daughter, and left my job in mid-January. I’m very lucky to be in a place where I can make this decision. So far, it’s been great. I think we’ve yet to find the exact rhythm of our weeks just yet, as BK was sick most of the first week I was home, and we are also doing some work in our kitchen, both of which have affected how we spend our days. But I’m sure that we will fall into a gentle routine soon, and our days will be even fuller than they already are. 🙂

This also means that I’ve wrapped up a few projects that have been lingering for a long time! Which brings me to my three things…

1. A Quillow. I’ve made 3, but I just finished the last one yesterday! Quillows are fast and fun sewing projects. Can’t wait to show you the full details of all of the ones I’ve made.
2. TMNT flip-top mittens: My friend Heather of BaH Yarns made the coolest self-striping colorway, Cowabunga, inspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. TMNT happens to be BK’s favorite thing ever, and I used some of the DK yarn to knit her a hat around Halloween time, and finally finished up some flip-top mittens with the leftovers just this weekend.
3. A Valentine’s countdown (close-up above): I LOVE this and I finished this within about 2 days of being home. Super cute! I hung it up on our bannister just to see how it looked, but have never taken it down! Technically, I shouldn’t have it up until Feb. 1, but it’s bringing so much joy right now I can’t. It’s very cold and grey almost every day, and the bright pops of color from this project are making me happy.

Full posts to follow on all of these projects, because they are so fun! Hope you’re all having a terrific Thursday. What did you finish this week?

WIP: O.W.L. Mitts

Because I felt like I could not get enough stranded mitts, I cast on immediately for the O.W.L. Mitts once I finished up my Snowfling ones.

I’ve managed to finish the first word on the palm of the left mitten – Expecto!

Spot my little pirate 🙂

It is turning out really pretty. But I’m just not feeling it. The Snowfling Mitts, now those felt like a joy. These feel like a job. Like a slog. I don’t know if it’s because the yarn dominance changes from one side of the mitt to the other and that seems fiddly to change the yarn around every time. Or if it’s because I’m trying to knit two-handed and that is slow going since I am still getting used to it. Or if it’s just the pattern, because there’s no rhythm to it because the owls and the words are changing all the time. I’m continuing on in the hopes that something will be made clear, and I will want to knit on them all the time. But I’m kind of doubting it.

While I am pondering over that mystery, I thought I’d share my funny little swatch with you that I made to practice two-handed knitting. At first, I just changed colors randomly to get used to the feel. Then I started doing part of the Snowfling pattern as best as I could from memory. It turns out I selected the wrong hand for my dominant color, so it doesn’t look quite right, but it gave me chance to see how it would feel to be doing two-handed work.

In weather news, it snowed 7 inches overnight, and a little bit more this morning. It is beautiful to see, but not beautiful to be out in, so we are holed up inside once again. Snow is fun a couple of times a winter, but I’ve had more than I care for now. I’m ready for spring!

FO: Snowfling Mitts

On Thursday, I finished my obsession – the Snowfling Mitts (project page).To be honest, I’m still not sure I’m over them.

In fact, I know I’m not. That’s why I bought yarn on Friday to cast on another pair of stranded mittens, the O.W.L. Mittens. Because I’ve decided I’m up for two-handed knitting (but maybe not the fancy woven stuff from the video I posted last time). And I’ve already cast on.

But back to these Snowfling beauties. There wasn’t a bit of the project that I didn’t love. I love the pattern. I love the colors and I love the yarn. It felt like perfection all around. I had no idea when I started the pattern that even something small like the thumb snowflake detail would be totally enchanting.

The only thing I did change was I did the fancy part of the snowflake pattern backwards on the second mitt so that they were reflections of each other. I wouldn’t have even thought about this mod (though it may have occurred to me after they were done), but I saw it mentioned on a Ravelry project page and once I read it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with them if I didn’t do it.

I think it turned out really well. I especially love the hint of peacock in the lining, and the cashmere is LUSH.

I haven’t blocked these beauties, because it is forecast to be dangerously cold this week (like the kind where you can get frostbite in under 10 minutes if your skin is exposed). I don’t have time for three layers of yarn to dry when I need these amazingly warm mittens on my hands. Maybe they’ll get blocked in the summer?

I styled them with my Encompass Scarf that I knit back in February 2011 with Malabrigo. It was certainly not intentional, but the mittens seem to match it pretty spot on. Pretty amazing considering that I made the mitts with the TFA kit three years later!

And finally, my true knitting confession. I finished the second mitt one evening and triumphantly held it up to show Mr Snips how beautiful it was. I was basking in the first FO of 2014 when I realized… I had not turned the mitten right side out before finishing off the lining and weaving in the ends. Which left me with a permanently inside out mitt! It took me two days to find the time to tink back to a place where I had enough room to pull the mitt back through the right way and could pick up all the stitches to finish it a second time. This was really the only hiccup I encountered in the whole project, since my enthusiasm for these mittens made things roll along quite nicely!

So now these super-warm mittens and my chunky Encompass Scarf are going to keep me warm in the frigid temperatures. What are you knitting/wearing to keep warm? Or are you one of those lucky Southern Hemisphere people who are currently having summer (jealous!)?

Snow is falling all around us

I am currently looking out the window at even more snow. While the massive storm from last week has mostly melted away, we are expecting another inch or two today. And while I love softly falling snow, the kind that does not add up at an inch an hour, I’m disappointed that I don’t yet have my Snowfling mittens complete to wear.

I have finished the first mitten, including lining. And I am about halfway done with the colorwork portion of the second mitten. I am only getting about three or four rows done a night, so my progress has slowed quite a bit.

I’m still really loving this project. Enough that I’ve already started researching my next pair of stranded mittens that I want to start ASAP after finishing these. I have my eye on the O.W.L. Mittens, which I have been coveting since I purchased The Unofficial Harry Potter Knits a few months ago. I worried they may be beyond my skill set, but I think I’ve really started to get the hang of colorwork.

However…. I am a right-handed thrower, and for these mittens, I have only been using my regular method, and picking up and changing the yarn for each color change. It’s not super fast, but I’m pretty efficient at it. I watched a video I found last night (via this project page) about two-handed knitting that creates a woven fabric on the back. I think I may try this for the O.W.L. Mittens, especially since the yarn dominance changes from front to back (also something I realized from perusing all of the completed projects on Ravelry).

In the meantime, I’ll be continuing on with my stranding and one-handed knitting for these Snowfling Mittens. Here’s a view of the back of mitten #1 pre-lining:

And now I’m off to work on Mitten #2. I want to finish these while it’s still winter, so I can revel in their wooly warmness!

 

Snow(fling)

We woke up this morning to a considerable amount of snow. I’m sure that before we went to bed, the news was saying we’d get about 3 inches. But as of this morning, it’s looking like it will be closer to 6. The weatherman said this morning it would only snow through noon, but it’s still coming down at a pretty good clip. So happy 2014!

The side benefit of this, of course, is that Baby Knitsnips and I will be able to hibernate today in front of the fire and keep toasty warm while we watch the snow swirl around outside.

The other benefit is that it is perfect mitten knitting weather, and that any and all nap times will be dedicated to my Snowfling Mitts. As I mentioned last time, I got the blue kit for Christmas. I started them on Saturday, and I am OBSESSED with them. I’ve not really done much colorwork in the past, but I’m finding this absolutely addicting. Last night at bed time, I was looking kind of sad. Mr Snips asked what was up, and I told him that I’d only had time to knit one row and that made me sad. True story. That’s how much I love knitting these things. Here’s this morning’s nap time shot. Latte in my mug, mittens on the table and all my yarn in my new project bag. Pretty, isn’t it? I ordered it from A Needle Runs Through It on Etsy as a little Christmas present to myself. This large size one is the perfect fit for my three skeins of yarn for this project.

I also ordered a small one. Because who can resist gnomes?

I primarily use my medium Tom Bihn bags with the see-through bottoms, because I really like being able to see my projects through the bottom, they’re well-made and they match my knitting bag. But occasionally, I need a bit of whimsy, and these bags are just the thing. I also wanted some zippered ones for any projects using dpns or my little cable needles to make sure that none of them escape the bag (which they can do in the drawstring ones). The only minor problem I see to these new bags is that they don’t have a fun fabric interior – they are just plain white. But when you consider the fun outer fabric, the cute zipper pulls (the owl one has a little star) and the good construction, I give them a pass. Besides, my yarn brightens up the inside of the bag, and I hardly ever look in it anyway once I get going.

And speaking of getting going… I noticed in the midst of writing this post that I have a glaring colorwork error about 5 rows down. So if you need me, I’ll be tinking…