mama-of-purl

Yay, the trial work day went really well and the boss pretty much told me I had the job, but I won't find out 100% until Friday morning at the latest. It'll be such a cool, diversified and challenging job, I can't believe how lucky I am to even have found this kind of job AND to have gotten a chance to show my skills. Big changes ahead...

Another wonderful surprise was in the mail today- a 25$ gift certificate for Halcyon Yarns given to me by Paul as one of the prizes in the Bitchin' Mittens KAL! I won in the category 'best use of color' for the Squirrelly Mitten(s). Sweet, eh?

Now I'm having SUCH a hard time deciding what I'm going to order... Malabrigo, I think, some roving from Maine sheep, just because that's where the company's at and because that's one of the things I certainly won't get over here. 

THANK YOU PAUL! 

THe first Squirrely Mitten is finished! How much fun this pattern is!! I just had to make the hand a bit longer and I had to guesstimate where to start with the decreases for the top, but it worked out well. And I didn't have to change the measurements for the thumb, which I was a little nervous about. Knitting the entire mitten with 2.5 mm needles instead of US 1s was all it took. This mitten was such a breeze, I'm looking forward to making the 2nd one:-)

Oh, want to hear a comment on the mitten, obviously from a non-knitter, at the playground this afternoon? "And they don't even look hand-knit!"

Here's a pair of mittens I finished today- I felted them using carded wool and felting it with hot soapy water and a lot of rubbing and pressing, etc. to fit my hands. Those should be great on chilly days riding my bicycle. They do look a bit like oven mitts, but they're, uh, unique;-) And they're soft enough to move my hands in them and pick up stuff. I could even handle the camera to take these pix wearing them!

I was talking on the phone when I laid out the different colors on the second mitten this morning and I messed up the sides- of course the palms as well as the back of the hands were supposed to be the same color. Doesn't bother me though, they're unidentical twins;-)

Today's the Peaceful Palms KAL's deadline and I'm extremely proud to present these to you at the very last minute:
My thanks go out to our wonderfully encouraging and caring host Nona!!

Okay, people- I finally finished knitting the Floral Fair-Isle Gloves last night. There are still a few ends that need to be woven, but I'm wearing them anyway. Ummm, now here's a picture of me wearing them this morning. I didn't come up with this, I caught myself brushing my teeth wearing the gloves. Couldn't help but getting the camera to snap a picture of it. How pathetic can a knitter get?! See the sorry look on my face?
I'm glad Johanna can't form sentences yet- if she could, she'd probably poked fun at me this morning;-)

A couple of you have asked where I got the great pattern for the floral fair-isle gloves.

It was Interweave.com's web-exclusive project in Fall 2005, here's the link: http://www.interweave.com/knit/interweave_knits/web_proje...

The gloves were designed by Carol Wassell.

As you can see on my pair, you can simply use some leftover yarn to make them.

Hey everyone, I hope you all had a peaceful Christmas! It was more peaceful than usual at our house, so that was nice;-) I finished the Noro hat when I was there, but it fits a little too snugly and see that weird bobble there at the top front? Well, it looks like that on my head, too. My sister's first comment: a bit smurfy, don't you think? I may need to redo the top, ahem. The pattern a modified version of is Elizabeth Zimmermann's Ganomy hat. I've had the Knitter's Almanac delivered just before the holidays and while I like the concept of the book, it could surely use a heck of a lot more pictures! It's hard to figure out which pattern belongs to which tiny b&w picture.

Speaking of books, I've been shopping for quite a few lately, and I need to mention one of them, 'Mein Lieblingspullover' by Amanda Griffiths. I had checked it out at a local bookstore, but ordered a copy online because the one they had was so shabby... Anyway, I must have been so occupied looking at the sweaters, I overlookedthat "model's" utter ugliness! Ewwww! It must be the writer's cousin or someone, there's no chance this woman is doing this professionally! Her pictures absolutely spoiled this somewhat neat book for me. I should have bought "The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns" instead anyway...

So, we've gotten a few centimeters of precious now here, which is rare in Hamburg. Since we've lost one of Johanna's store-bought mittens a while back,and the thrum mitten turned out to be a tad too small, I made her a super quick and simple pair that only took a few hours. And you know what? *drumroll* SHE LOVES THEM! She even 'told' me to put them back on when her hands got cold as she was eating some bread. Isn't that amazing? A toddler who likes to put on mittens? ;-) Another new item in the picture is the hat (remember I wanted to knit a new, more feminine hat for J?) It's a mini version of the Ganomy hat, sans the smurf factor, plus a little cable running up the front. I smuggled the two red merino yarns out of my mother's stash;-) There's also a matching scarf on the needles:

I can almost hear you saying: "Geez, that mama can't stop casting on again!", and you're right. My sister stopped by last night to drop off 3 balls of sock yarn and instead of making a sample swatch, I started a pair of socks from the aforementioned library book:

the pattern is pretty neat and turned out to be quite meditative once I got the hang of it. Turned off the TV, listened to an audiobook, put my feet up, and got some post-Christmas relaxation.

Have a knitty 2006!!

Wow, I've been knitting and thinking about this little sweater for two days now and it took until right now to come up with this oh so obvious name for it:-) Got to the part where I had to bind off for the armholes and ran out of red yarn, but I'm going to get a delivery tomorrow, thanks to mom, yay! I'm going to keep the yoke very simple on this sweater, otherwise the patterns would be a little overwhelming, I imagine.

Then I finished the cuff on mr. left hand fair-isle glove watching Tatort and just started adding some gusset stitches.

Alright, I'm spent for today, have a good week, all of you!