These mittens have sound effects.

I don't consider myself a knitwear designer by any stretch of the imagination. But I do occasionally have flashes of inspiration, sparked by some kind of need I encounter in my daily life. Last year, while I was working at the elementary school getting kids in wheelchairs off the bus at a miserable ridiculously-early-and-ridiculously-cold 7 a.m. every day, I loved the utility of my beautiful Last Minute Knitted Gifts wristwarmers, but my fingers still got cold during those between-bus waiting periods.

So I decided that I needed a pair of those awesome mittens with the half-fingers tucked inside the flap. And I couldn't really find a good pattern I liked, so I just made one up. I borrowed elements from Amy Singer's flappy mittens, and also from the gloves in Last Minute, I think.

I knitted the first one in Atlanta, and half of the second one -- but then I lost my enthusiasm for the project (something about spring, and not needing them so much anymore... and getting engaged and looking for jobs...) and I apparently lost the paper on which I wrote the recipe of what I did on the first glove. So I spent several afternoons picking at the finished glove and trying to figure out what the heck I did the first time around so I can do it again in reverse.

And yes, I am trying to make all the spirals go in reverse, so I double- and triple- and quadruple-check everything. I've ripped out the pinkie and first fingers so many times that I lost count! But here they are.

The yarn is Malabrigo, size 8 needles on the body and flap, size 6 on the fingers. I should have done the ribbing on 6s, but I didn't. Am considering ripping the ribs from the bottom and redoing, but am also lazy and decided that I'd rather get to wear these for at least a little bit of this winter.

And I say the mittens have sound effects because you all you can see is blue when the flap is closed -- and then "whap-shah!" Yellow!

I WANT!!!!!

OMG I want this lamp that knits its own shade.

Whoever thought to put a lightbulb kit inside a knitting machine is an absolute genius. I'd throw myself to the ground in an offer of marriage, but, well, I'm not so into polygamy.

Happy Easter! (yes, a day early -- Happy Holy Saturday doesn't quite have the same ring to it.)

I've got another post in the works, but I have to take pictures first. Soon, I promise.

Labyrinth Rug

I've been working on the Labyrinth Rug for months now -- I think I have four or five feet done, but it's my mindless-TV and between-projects knitting. There's a basket o wool next to my chair in the living room.

My strategy has been this: For a while, I bought a random skein of green worsted-weight wool from the sale bin every time I went to a yarn shop. Those, added to my stashed green scrap yarns, will likely go in to the rug at some point. I'm liking the yellow-based and olive-y greens better than the blue-heavy greens, so now I've got a couple of blue-heavy skeins that are just sitting here, and I'm not going to use them for the rug. (I'm not entirely sure that this picture does justice to the colors of the rug -- it's more vivid than this, I think.) There are also a few skeins that I bought that I've now reconsidered (do I really want to use my precious Blue Sky Alpaca sport doubled in a rug? And then walk on it??? No). So we'll see how this baby turns out.

Husband and I are having fun painting the new house. I haven't yet decided if this rug will go in the green room (which will not be done for a while) or or the orange room (for the great color contrast) or the yellow room (which is done but is currently the storage/staging area for the rest of the painting work). The orange room is very orange. The yellow room is very yellow. There are decisions to be made -- whenever I get this thing done.

Back in Blue

Back from neglecting my knitblogging life.

So the last few months have been a busy and stressful time. Packing up one house, moving from Georgia to Vermont, starting a new job, buying and moving in to a new house, Husband finally able to join me in the frozen north, Christmas and New Year, Ordination, and now, February (which may be the most difficult thing on the whole list).

I finished the Vermont Sweater in November and knew that it would be silly of me to begin a new project while I was still in Georgia, so I waited. One night before Husband moved up here (but after the furniture had arrived), I was sitting alone in our house with a great need to knit, but with no knitting books (packed away) and no internet (not yet hooked up). So I grabbed a random ball of Jaeger (it was all I could find) and started making up something. It felt so good to knit! I whiled away many lonely Husband-less hours that way, and carried the knitting around with me for a month or so (yes, even after he arrived), and now the HolyKnitter household has another scarf! Here's an actual pattern. Enjoy!

Blue Diamond Scarf

Yarn: Jaeger Baby Merino DK, 3 balls
Needles: US 6 circular or straights
Notions: cable needle (cn)(optional - these cables are small enough you can cable by hand pretty easily)

CO 36 stitches (I like the Continental/Long-Tail Cast On the best, but whatever)
rows 1-4: *p1, k1* to end of row
row 5: *(p1, k1) twice, place next 2 sts on cable needle to front, p1, k1, then p1, k1 from cn* repeat to last 4 sts, (p1, k1) twice.
rows 6-9: same as rows 1-4
row 10: *put first two sts on cn to front, p1, k1, then p1, k1 from cn, (p1, k1) twice* to last four sts, put next two sts on cn to front, pl, k1, then p1, k1 from cn.
row 11: begin with row 1 instructions

Repeat pattern until scarf is desired length, and bind off in p1, k1 rib -- I'm stopping when I get to the end of the 3rd ball. I actually didn't bother to count my rows, I just cabled when it looked "right," so fiddle with the cabling until the look is right for you.

There's a funnyish story behind the yarn for this scarf. A year or so ago, a fantastic yarn store in my parents' town went out of business (so, so sad! I really wanted this store to succeed!), and when I found out about the closing, I convinced my parents to go to the sale and to call me from the store on my dad's cell phone so I could tell them what to get for me. I knew what brands I wanted them to pick up for me, but it's hard describing yarn colors over the phone, so we...tried. We really did try. And most of what they got was exactly perfect. And then there was this blue yarn. My mom said "oh! you love this color blue! I don't quite know how to describe it, but I know you wear it all the time! There are five balls left, I'm going to pick them up for you."

Famous last words, right? When they mailed the yarn to me in Georgia, I opened the box excitedly...and this blue yarn leaped out at me, and I was thorougly underwhelmed. Blue is my absolute favorite color. Or, rather, cobalt blue is my absolute favorite color. This turquoise/royal is not a color I would actually buy for myself ever. I wouldn't wish it on anyone I like. I would have dismissed it easily. But now I owned five balls of it, from a store that doesn't exist anymore (can't return!), and it's too much to make something small to give to charity, like a hat, but it's too little to make something worth the time and effort, like a sweater. So I just let it marinate in my stash for a while, well hidden under some yarn that I actually do like.

And then I moved to Vermont. And in the middle of the night, in a lonely house full of boxes I can't identify, and in a city where I know absolutely no one, this yarn was the first yarn I could find, and I figured I'd just let my mind wander and my fingers fly. I absolutely adore the result, and I'm so glad my mom thought I liked this color. Because now I kind of do.

Vermont Sweater

So, I finally got a job. In a church. This is what I've been working toward for the last two -- no, five -- no, seven years. Needless to say, I'm thrilled.

The last several months have been a whirlwind. Yeah, I got married. I've also been searching for a job (a "call" in church jargon). At the same time as planning a wedding. Oy!

So let me tell you the story of the Vermont Sweater.

In June, my denomination had its giant bi-annual nationwide meeting. I went, knowing that my Enormous Application Dossier would be available for nationwide distribution in the following week or so, intent on Networking. I emailed Regional People-In-Charge in the states I most wanted to focus on, asking for meetings. Let's talk about opportunities in your state, blah blah blah.

I had six "meetings" and met a ton of new people, which made me feel like the $300 I'd spent traveling was worth it. I worked HARD that weekend: one night, I woke up my roommate by sitting up in bed and saying "Hi! I'm HolyKnitter. It's so nice to meet you!"

I am not kidding. I was sleep-networking.

That was the weekend that I left my Secret Knitting (the Clementine Shawl) at my sister's house in Boston. I flew to Boston to stay with her, then took the bus to Hartford the next morning. I discovered that I'd left my knitting when I got on the bus, all ready to settle in to a couple of hours of uninterrupted sitting time. Luckily, my sis had given me her copy of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off, so I wasn't completely out of knitting luck.

Fortunately, my first destination that weekend was a church in West Hartford, where I spent a day in a workshop with other clergy under the age of 40. Fortunately, I'm a good Yarn Tourist, and had already done my research... when we broke into interest groups ("Single Clergy," "Clergy in Small Towns," etc.), I organized the knitters to go around the corner to Sit 'N Knit. The original plan involved meeting up with other group members in the local pub (the "Clergy Who Like Beer" group), but had such a great time chatting with the women in the store that we lost all track of time and completely blew off our new friends. I guess that makes us the Clergy who Like Yarn More Than Beer.

Anyway, if you ever find yourself in West Hartford, go there. Because those women almost convinced me that I wanted to move to Connecticut.

Almost. I did meet with The Guy From Connecticut the next day. He almost convinced me, too. Almost.

Anyway, I left my knitting at my sister's house. And I was at a conference. Conference = LOTS of time to knit while listening to someone talk (talking heads included Bill Moyers and Barack Obama. Spectacular.) So I had to buy enough yarn for a sweater, just in case.

The yarn I bought was a Green Mountain Spinnery misty-forest-green worsted. Eight skeins. I cast on for Stefanie Japel's Cozy V-Neck Pullover that day. After three days of Conferencing, I had just about the entire body done. Yeah.

And the arms took another, um, four months or so. But then again, I was working on my Secret Knitting and getting married and looking for jobs.

(Also on the Yarn Tourism front, my hotel that weekend was at the same highway exit as Creative Fibers. I skipped church on Sunday morning to walk -- yes, WALK -- under the sidewalk-less overpass, breakfasted at Dunkin Donuts, and then continued down and across the road to Creative Fibers, which was closed. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for the nose-shaped grease marks on the windows. Looks like a great store, just don't go on Sunday mornings, because they're not open.)

BUT! After my failed attempt at Yarn Tourism, I went back to my hotel, showered, changed, and met with The Woman From Vermont. And we lunched for an hour and a half. At the end of our conversation, she mentioned a little church just outside of Burlington, VT. "I know you're looking for a full-time job, and this is only three-quarters, but I think you'd be a really good fit for this church. They have a shawl-knitting ministry, even. I'll send you their information so you can give it some thought."

And give it some thought I did.

Y'all, I must have interviewed with ten or twelve churches. I must have read up on and NOT applied for ten. I must have gotten "thanks but no thanks" letters from twenty more. I know I turned down at least three who placed beautiful offers at my feet and tried to beat down my door. None of them felt right.

This little church just outside of Burlington did. And, thankfully, they felt as enthusiastic about me as I do about them. I'm moving in two weeks! We've already bought a house, now we just have to sell the one down here.

Throughout this whole process, I was working on my green sweater. From the Conference, through a couple of plane rides between home and Atlanta for wedding stuff (I must admit, it was nice to have a big "public" project to work on that wasn't the Secret Knitting -- my husband had NO idea I was working on something else), the car ride up and back, and then a trip up to Vermont to interview at this wonderful little church that liked me enough to fly me and my husband up there for the weekend.

The search committee knew that I'm a knitter. And they were trying to sell me on their town. So they took me to Kaliedoscope Yarns. These people are no fools.

I showed the green sweater to the search committee, and they were thoroughly impressed. I finished sewing up the second sleeve of the sweater as we drove away from Burlington (flew out of Boston, got to visit my sister too!), and decided that this is the Vermont Sweater. The yarn came from Vermont in the first place, and every stitch brought me through the job search process to the other side: Burlington! I still haven't blocked it, but that didn't stop me from wearing it to snuggle with my new nephew that weekend.

Meet Nando. That's short for Ferdinando. Silly name aside, he is the most adorable bulldog puppy I have seen since I was a little kid and our dog had puppies. Wow, he's a great dog.


Anyway, at Olivia's request, I'll be posting updates on our new house here, as well. We bought a fixer-upper in a historic district in Burlington (two blocks from Downtown!), and it needs a lot of work, because nothing's been done to this place for 40 years, and it's been sitting empty for at least three. Since it is a 1910-built house in a historic district, we're eligible for lots of historic preservation grants from the city. It's an exciting adventure, but it means I probably will have fewer knitting and more lead-paint-removal updates for a while. I'll try to keep up with both, but I will be a little internet-restricted for a while since neither my house nor my church has internet access, so we'll see about that. I foresee lots of coffee shop time in my future. Good thing I will be able to walk to, like, five of them from my new house!

Now on Ravelry!

I finally got my Ravelry invitation. So now it's time to step up my game.

Yeah, 'cause I've got so much time for that!

Traveling for a job interview this weekend. If I get the job, if I accept the job, I'll be quitting my job, and moving, and helping my husband sell the house (long distance), and finding a new place to live, and learning a whole new community of people, and learning a whole new job... sounds like a perfect time to photograph the entirety of my stash and every single project I've ever done and uncover all my hidden WIPs that are lurking God knows where.

Wooly Eye Candy (and a bad pun)

I really shouldn't be posting right now. I should be going to bed. I have a long and busy week ahead of me, with a job interview trip at the end of it. But I figure just oooone short and picture-y post won't hurt. Please enjoy this ewe candy, I mean, eye candy, from this year's Iowa State Fair.

<--- This sheep was seriously complaining about being shorn! No stomping or anything, just very vocal in his dislike for the situation!







---> This sheep was much quieter. And look! This kid is learning how to card the wool his dad is harvesting. Dad was also trying to give a shearing lesson, but the kid wasn't nearly as interested in Dad's instructions as he was in the carding.



Also: BABY SHEEP! This one was about two days old, if I recall correctly, and still very wobbly. So. Cute.

What's up, Shorty? also, Books! Now with Pictures!

So, a year ago back in June, a church member (awesome woman with tons of connections to my hometown) had a baby. This past June, Baby Ben had his first birthday. And because this kid is so awesome -- and his mom is so awesome -- I decided that I couldn't just show up at his birthday party with a card, watch him get cake all over his face, and then leave. No, I needed to knit this kid something as awesome as he is.

Like Baby Cargo Pants!

I used some olive green superwash wool I had lying around -- not enough for something adult-sized, but far too much to justify making just a hat and mittens -- and stitched this baby up in about a week. Complete with front lawn bake sale for the neighborhood festival. I even sent out my husband to buy buttons for the pockets and elastic for the waist. Twice. (He did great with the buttons; those he only had to buy once.) I stitched up adorable little pockets and sewed them on, buttons and all. I stitched up the waistband and threaded the elastic through it. And then I never sewed up that last inch in the back. And never gave it to my church member.

Which is fine, because I haven't seen her since June. She hasn't been to church.

And really? These pants are still way too big for the kid.

And what with the wool, and the June birthday... I've still got time to put the finishing touches on, right? Right?

(The yarn is Laines du Nord Giunco. That's a worsted weight 100% superwash merino. Color #600. I think I did the medium-big size. I think I used 4 balls. Helpful and informative, huh?)

There are no pictures of the kid wearing the pants, because he doesn't have them. But around the same time, I did some bargain-buster Amazon.com shopping, so I'm showing a picture of that happiness instead.


Bart Ehrman's The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A new look at betrayer and betrayed. Good stuff, I'm reading it right now.
Tracey Ullman and Mel Clark's Knit 2 Together
Stephanie Japel's Fitted Knits (I'm working on a project from this right now, look for a future post complete with pictures and story!)
Erika Knight's Simple Knits for Cherished Babies