Lulu is apparently having problems with PDF downloads today - I talked with them and they say their engineers should have it fixed within a day. If you ordered something today, please let me know and I'll email you the PDF. I don't have the covers for the booklets though - Lulu adds those during the order process.
Also, you can always go back and download any of the PDF downloads again if you ever have problems with a download. Just go to http://www.lulu.com and log into your account (at the upper right of the page) and you'll see all your previous downloads and you can download any of them again.
Anyway, sorry to everyone who tried to order something today!
This scan shows the chain stitch better on the Norwegian star hat but the colors are off.
I think I'm close to being finished with my Christmas knitting. I've been saving up knitted items for two years so I should be able to fill six holiday boxes. I'm currently working on another pair of Knitty's Cigar Gloves in some Aran weight yarn. I also plan to make a Nordic hat, probably from a Dale of Norway ski pattern, and a few tams using Palette.
My Glove Knitting booklet has been reviewed on the Craft Gossip web site. I need to spend some time finding more places to email review copies.
Norwegian Star Hat
I have an FO to show you but I can't wait to take photos after the sun goes down behind the mountains. At that time I'll be too busy watching the World Series. I like both the Red Sox and the Rockies so I figure I can't lose.
Anyway, here is the Norwegian Star Hat from Stranded Color Knitting knit in Nature Spun sport weight. The real colors are closer in the sun-dappled photo. I wasn't happy with the ways the colors were blending so I did some chain stitch embroidery of one of the cuff colors near the top and one of the top colors near the cuff. This really seemed to help blend the colors together better.
Anyway, here is the Norwegian Star Hat from Stranded Color Knitting knit in Nature Spun sport weight. The real colors are closer in the sun-dappled photo. I wasn't happy with the ways the colors were blending so I did some chain stitch embroidery of one of the cuff colors near the top and one of the top colors near the cuff. This really seemed to help blend the colors together better.
I'm working on a pattern for a pair of mittens with a Christmas poem on them, a la the Poetry Mittens. One is finished but I may want to do a whole other pair with different colors. I'm waiting until I'm completely finished to show them off.
If anyone is in the Albuquerque area and looking for a terrific pet, there are three upcoming adoptathons where you can meet lots of bunnies and talk to our knowledgeable local rabbit people about these wonderful companions. All the rabbits were rescued from the city shelters and all are spayed/neutered, affectionate and litter-trained. Here is one rabbit I'm told is named Ghost who loves people and loves to be held. (Peaches could take a few lessons from Ghost!)
If anyone is in the Albuquerque area and looking for a terrific pet, there are three upcoming adoptathons where you can meet lots of bunnies and talk to our knowledgeable local rabbit people about these wonderful companions. All the rabbits were rescued from the city shelters and all are spayed/neutered, affectionate and litter-trained. Here is one rabbit I'm told is named Ghost who loves people and loves to be held. (Peaches could take a few lessons from Ghost!)
The dates for the adoptathons are October 20th and November 17th at the Petco on 10700 Lomas and October 27th at the Petco Westside on 3601 Old Airport Road. All adoptathons will take place between 10 am and 1 pm and the adoption fee is $99 to go to the House Rabbit Society.
Checkerboard Mesa Hat
A while ago a friend was over and the Checkerboard Mesa Hats were out on the table. He picked one up and proceeded to wear it the rest of the night. He's this big burly Swedish guy, a very conservative dresser, and the sight of him in the hat was hilarious. He requested one and I said I'd make him one without the curlicues but he insisted on the curlicues.
Anyway, I made him one in blue shades of worsted weight wool from the stash and when I present it to him for Christmas I'll offer to cut off the curlicues if he prefers.
I really have to get a photo of him in the hat.
Anyway, I made him one in blue shades of worsted weight wool from the stash and when I present it to him for Christmas I'll offer to cut off the curlicues if he prefers.
I really have to get a photo of him in the hat.
Just a quick update as I'm currently in the middle of a tv yoga class that is torturing my legs. Oddly enough today's routine is called Yoga for Happiness. I guess happiness comes when the class is over. The yoga show is part of a new cool tv channel called Veria we get for free this month at Dish Network.The channel has aromatherapy, herbalism, eco-travel, and organic gardening shows but my faves are the two cooking shows. Ann Gentry (of Real Food Daily restaurants and cookbook fame) does a vegan cooking show and there also is a really interesting sugar-free, gluten-free baking show.
Here's the cuff of the Sea Mineral Mittens so you can see the colors better.
Here's the cuff of the Sea Mineral Mittens so you can see the colors better.
I believe there are now enough mittens and gloves here at Santa's Workshop. Next I'm going to start on some hats for my Christmas boxes.
Sea Mineral Mittens
Here are the Sea Mineral Mittens done in Knitpicks' Palette. I used Calypso Heather and Sky for the main hand pattern and then also all the shades of purple, all the greens, including the new heathers, and a few shades of blue.
I'm too impatient to wait for DH to take action photos so here is one mitten on my hand. I made a few changes to the pattern: I added a pattern repeat before the thumb opening, I made the mitten and fingertips a little flatter, and I moved the right hand thumb to the opposite side of the hand to keep the row join on the outside of the hand.
Spillyjane's free pattern for these mittens is HERE.
Jogless Jog for Stripes
I made a woman's pair of the striped alpaca Spruce Mountain Mittens. The colors of Knitpicks' Andean Treasure I used were lagoon, wild rose heather, and lilac heather. The pattern with a men and women's version is HERE.
Anyway, here is something I learned by accident. Normally when I am knitting stripes when I start a row with a new color I pull the yarn to the LEFT of all the other color yarns to prevent the yarns tangling. This is what I did for the men's version on the right. But for the women's mitten on the left I pulled the yarn under and around the other two colors to the RIGHT to start knitting the row. This purposely tangles the yarns but seems to get rid of the jog. I still get the larger stitches at the beginning of the row so next time I will try harder to pull the yarn tighter at the beginning of a row.
Here's what it looks like on the inside - a little bit neater.
Now I have no idea if this works for all stripes or if it was just this particular pattern but I will definitely try it again.
I went in to town early today in the hope of getting some photos of the hot air balloons but unfortunately there were none. It is pretty windy today so I guess the Balloon Fiesta events stopped before I arrived. There really isn't much fall color here in NM but I found a little.
This is rabbitbrush in bloom - I've never found out why it has this name.
I'm not sure what this red stuff is.
DH is working on our woodpile. He gets a forest service permit and cuts down standing dead trees. We heat with wood and he says this is mainly Ponderosa pine. Frankly I can't even imagine making a fire as it is still hot here.
Well back to the baseball playoffs. I've watched 8 games in the last 3 days and I'm getting a huge amount of knitting done.
This is rabbitbrush in bloom - I've never found out why it has this name.
I'm not sure what this red stuff is.
DH is working on our woodpile. He gets a forest service permit and cuts down standing dead trees. We heat with wood and he says this is mainly Ponderosa pine. Frankly I can't even imagine making a fire as it is still hot here.
Well back to the baseball playoffs. I've watched 8 games in the last 3 days and I'm getting a huge amount of knitting done.
Photography
I've been on Ravelry a few months (username nanetteb - come join us in the Glove Knitters group) and I've received a LOT of comments about the brightness of the colors I choose. I'm not only obsessed with bright colors; I also love neutrals and pastels and heathers but it is harder to use them here.
My color choices really reflect my environment. It isn't an accident that most of the grayish heathery yarns are popular in gray climates like the Shetland isles. Judging from my blog reading one of the largest concentration of traditional Fair Isle knitters live in the Seattle area.
As for me, I can't even get a good photo showing a heathery color in natural light. Where I live we get over 310 days a year of sunshine and it isn't just regular sunshine. It is fierce high altitude (over 7000 feet) sunshine that fades and washes out anything in its path. The only colors that are even visible around here are the rich, bright, saturated colors. Bright turquoise garage doors and hot pink front doors are not unusual here in NM. When I do projects in very muted colors I genuinely have trouble even seeing some of the colorwork while standing outside. So that is why you often have to wear sunglasses to read my blog
The light here also makes it difficult to photograph the colors I choose. I try to take advantage of the 10 minute window of opportunity I have each day for outdoor shots right after the sun goes down behind the mountains before it gets dark. If not, I have these four less desirable choices.
Outdoors, full sun - colors all wrong and heathered section right below main hand pattern almost invisible
Outdoors, in shade - the best but darker than the reality
Indoors with natural light and no flash - too dark
Indoors flash - the farthest away from the real colors and the heathers I used become solids
The project shown is SpillyJane's gorgeous Sea Mineral Mittens. Everyone go get this wonderful free pattern knit in Knitpicks' Palette (my yarn choice also) and look at her beautiful water-inspired muted colors in the original. I made a few changes - I read the sea plant chart wrong so that is slightly different and I added a pattern repeat before the thumb opening.
My color choices really reflect my environment. It isn't an accident that most of the grayish heathery yarns are popular in gray climates like the Shetland isles. Judging from my blog reading one of the largest concentration of traditional Fair Isle knitters live in the Seattle area.
As for me, I can't even get a good photo showing a heathery color in natural light. Where I live we get over 310 days a year of sunshine and it isn't just regular sunshine. It is fierce high altitude (over 7000 feet) sunshine that fades and washes out anything in its path. The only colors that are even visible around here are the rich, bright, saturated colors. Bright turquoise garage doors and hot pink front doors are not unusual here in NM. When I do projects in very muted colors I genuinely have trouble even seeing some of the colorwork while standing outside. So that is why you often have to wear sunglasses to read my blog
The light here also makes it difficult to photograph the colors I choose. I try to take advantage of the 10 minute window of opportunity I have each day for outdoor shots right after the sun goes down behind the mountains before it gets dark. If not, I have these four less desirable choices.
Outdoors, full sun - colors all wrong and heathered section right below main hand pattern almost invisible
Outdoors, in shade - the best but darker than the reality
Indoors with natural light and no flash - too dark
Indoors flash - the farthest away from the real colors and the heathers I used become solids
The project shown is SpillyJane's gorgeous Sea Mineral Mittens. Everyone go get this wonderful free pattern knit in Knitpicks' Palette (my yarn choice also) and look at her beautiful water-inspired muted colors in the original. I made a few changes - I read the sea plant chart wrong so that is slightly different and I added a pattern repeat before the thumb opening.
Here's a close-up scan of the Latvian mitten slip stitch pattern. Even if I used only 4 colors for the cathedral windows as the pattern requested I still would have had as many ends to deal with because I would have cut each one at the end of the row. Carrying six colors would have made me insane from all the tangling.
Using multi-colored yarn would have helped in the ends department but the slip stitch pattern would have been the same. Each cathedral window has two colors - the main color and the yellow which surrounds the main color on three sides. It is pretty though because it gives the illusion of three color rows.
After all that wrestling with the yarn and needles, it is quite pleasant to now be working on a simple mitten pattern using soft soft alpaca. It is a women's version of the men's alpaca mittens I did previously. I'm adding a women's size to test the pattern and finally write it up.
This scan doesn't get the colors quite right but it does show the German twisted cast on I like for corrugated ribbing. I inadvertently figured something out on how to deal with the striped pattern jogs at the end of the row which I'll show later this week.
Using multi-colored yarn would have helped in the ends department but the slip stitch pattern would have been the same. Each cathedral window has two colors - the main color and the yellow which surrounds the main color on three sides. It is pretty though because it gives the illusion of three color rows.
After all that wrestling with the yarn and needles, it is quite pleasant to now be working on a simple mitten pattern using soft soft alpaca. It is a women's version of the men's alpaca mittens I did previously. I'm adding a women's size to test the pattern and finally write it up.
This scan doesn't get the colors quite right but it does show the German twisted cast on I like for corrugated ribbing. I inadvertently figured something out on how to deal with the striped pattern jogs at the end of the row which I'll show later this week.
Cathedral Mittens by Lizbeth Upitis
Three color rows. A few really long floats. Braided cuff. Annoying slip stitch pattern. More than a half hour's worth of ends to deal with per mitten. Still I think these Latvian mittens will make a good Christmas gift.
I used size 0 dpns and 12 colors of sock yarn from my stash. The pattern is the Cathedral Mittens by Lizbeth Upitis from the book Homespun Handknit. I was worried I'd run out of black but as it turned out I had enough. If I had know I would have made the cuff background black. I did add some extra duplicate stitch to the cuff in black.
I am going to make some alpaca mittens next. I will use the baseball playoffs to help me finish all my holiday gift knitting.
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