FO's and two new projects

Well, the brief dishcloth knitting turned into a stash-cleaning (No more kitchen cotton! Woo hoo!). Here's a sampling:
















I finally finished the blue lace scarf this morning, and will post some photos once it is blocked. It doesn't look much different now from the last photos. To celebrate, I cast on two new projects - more Christmas gifts. The black toque is a slight modification of this pattern, knit in Briggs and Little Heritage 2 ply. I had quite a bit of that yarn left from a sweater I knit last year, so I'm hoping I might have enough for matching gloves. Here's where it's at:







I love how warm this wool is, but it's pretty unrefined. It's really scratchy on the hands, and that little pile of fluff on the right there? That's all the little bits of grass and moss that I've pulled out of the yarn so far. You'd think that stuff would come out in the processing, wouldn't you? I mean, these must have been some seriously dirty sheep! The thing is, I bought a lot of this a couple of summers ago in Newfoundland. It was really cheap, but I guess you get what you pay for. Anyway, this one is for my dad, and he's usually not too fussy. A least it will be warm when he's in the woods. I plan to use some of the remaining voluminous B&L stash to teach myself how to do traditional Newfoundland double-knit fisherman's mitts one of these days. My grandmother must have knit hundreds of pairs of those over her lifetime.

My other new project is my fourth Branching Out lace scarf from the Spring 2005 edition of Knitty. I'm knitting this in Elann.com Highland Silk, in bright purple. Here it is after three pattern repeats:

I knit three of these over the summer (all gifts), and my favourite was in this Highland Silk, in a dark blue. It looked really different after blocking, with better stitch definietion, and is really nice and soft. Maybe I'll get to do one for myself after all of the holiday knitting is finished! Alrighty then, back to my knitting!

A brief interlude

The blue scarf is still waiting to be finished, but I've taken a bit of a break from it. The latest FO's are these:



Another pair for the charity pile. And then I discovered some cotton dishcloth yarn that has been languishing in the bottom of my knitting basket and decided to do a couple of these:

I love this bright colourway.

It's all coming back to me...

I should have been marking papers most of the day, but I did manage to sort out my sidebar issues, and am starting to remember the basics of HTML. I might have suffered through a semester of computer programming in undergrad, but I never actually used it to do anything practical before! Anyway, I'm happy with the way the blog is coming together. My next challenges will involve adding buttons and a banner. But that will have to wait until the weekend.

And for the knitting portion of today's post, I finally took some photos of the scarf I have in progress:









Just 3 or 4 inches left to go.















Detail of the lace pattern.








I will hopefully make some progress tonight while watching Gilmore Girls.

I had some excitement on the weekend betting on (and winning!) a big box of vintage yarn from an estate sale. $20 US got me over 5 lbs of pure wool, including at least three full cones. By the time I factored in the cost of postage to Canada, the price was doubled, but I still think I got a great deal. I can't wait for it to get here to I can finger it all and make plans for it. My adventures in dyeing will likely start with some of this stuff.

Challenges of blog-land

So I spent part of the weekend fiddling around with the Blogger help section, trying to set up Links and other things in a sidebar. Alas, I have forgotten everything I learned in that dreaded computer programming class I took so many moons ago, and am now a certifiable HTML-illiterate. I tried following the intstructions for copying and pasting the code to create a links section on the sidebar, but nothing happens, even after republishing the blog. I may have to go looking for help on this one. Or buy a copy of HTML for Dummies....

On the bright side, I got lots of knitting in while watching TV last night and have finished a Christmas present of fingerless gloves and a toque for my younger brother (photos to come after the holidays). As a bass player and sound technician who plays a lot of outdoor gigs, I thought the gloves might be useful for him - we'll see if he thinks they're cool enough. I'm also still working on that interminable lace scarf - photos to come soon.

Recent FO's

So, what's on the needles right now? I'm in the midst of multiple holiday gift knitting projects. It appears that this is going to be the year of lace scarves. I have really gotten into lace this year, and I love scarves because they're small enough to let me play with some of the more expensive yarns that I don't usually splurge on for myself. The latest one is an eyelet lace pattern from KnitPicks that I'm knitting in Elann.com Devon. The fine gauge (it's supposed to be sport weight, but is definitely on the fine end of sport) means that this one is taking a while, but it's so soft and turning out so beautifully that I'm enjoying every minute of it. I still haven't decided if I should post photos of these gifts, or maybe save them all up until after the holidays so none of the surprises are ruined.
So, here are a couple of photos of recently finished projects:

This is a birthday gift for my husband's cousin's little boy (who we like to call our "nephew"), who will be one just two days after Christmas. I still have to add buttons to the shoulder, and knit an adorable stuffed doggie to go with. I have already sent a set just like it off to my nephew for his second birthday. The pattern is from Animal Knits by Zoe Mellor (which is full of absolutely adorable toddler patterns).


And this pile of mittens is the result of my annual charity mitten kntting. Girl Guides in Ottawa have a service project called "Warm Hands Warm Hearts", wherein they collect up mittens for distribution to needy children through the Snowsuit Fund. I love being able to creatively use up odds and ends from my scrap bag. The patterns are all adapted from the very old "Gloves and Mitts" booklet by Patons, adjusted for knitting on dpns. After a few pairs, I don't even look at the patterns any more.

So everyone else has got one, why not me? I've been reading knitting blogs for quite some time now, and love following the progress of people's projects. I decided that it was high time I got my own space to share photos and stories about knitting, and life in general. When I found that my friend Glenna had started a knitting blog, that was the tipping point. I wanted to share what I was up to too.

But why hedgehog, you ask? I have have a long history with pet hedgehogs. The latest, Molly, has been with us for almost three years now, and is cute beyond belief. She wanted to be the star of this show, and since hedgies are hard to knit for - if she gets anywhere near fibre of any kind, it pills up and embeds itself in her spines, poor thing - I thought this was a way to make her feel included. She's got attitude, and will make a perfect mascot.