Mittens for Ben

(editor's note: I wrote this post a month ago, but was having technical difficulties... photos added to next post.)

Dear Sweet Ben (DSB) lives around the corner from me. He is NOT the same Ben who lives down the street, for whom I made a pair of Dashings last year (and no, I have never seen him wear them). DSB is an alumnus of my undergrad college in Iowa, and just happened to move here a year-and-some ago to go to grad school -- and we would have never known each other, except that another neighbor, a person in his grad department, connected us. He’s good-natured and kind, and just a very nice person. We try to be good neighbors to each other – sharing garden produce, the occasional houseplant/cat-sitting, I’ll give him a ride to school (or partway) if I see him out walking in the dead of winter, etc.

DSB got mild frostbite on his fingertips last winter, carrying his groceries home from the co-op without his gloves on. I promised him I’d make gloves, and even went so far as to ask him what color his coat is and buy the appropriate yarn (basic light gray Cascade 220), but then the weather warmed up and the need was not urgent. Now that the air is getting colder in that inevitable decline toward Real Winter, I need to make good on my promise. Also, when my grandmother died last month, DSB was totally willing to care for Doc at a moment’s notice. I’m also going to bake cookies. He deserves a big thank-you from the Holyknitter household. As does his girlfriend Jamie, who also rocks equally (even though she was out of town when Grandma died, so she wasn’t around to help with the cat this time – she has in the past)(I will probably make her mittens at some point, too, but haven't done any planning for that yet).

Anyway, DSB is getting a pair of double-knitted mittens (I'm using size 5s, so they'll be nice and dense as well as double-layered! No frostbite here!), complete with feeding-through-coat-sleeves string. It’s been a loooong time since I’ve done any double-knitting, so it’s taken me a while to get the hang of it. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with the thumb, as double-knitting one seems like it will be a pain. Then again, I do have to increase for a gusset anyway. We’ll see what I decide.

Don't you love how I leave you in such suspense at the end of my blog posts?

Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival 2009

A few weeks ago, StrungUp, Meowkat, Mango, and I piled into Sweetea's environmentally-friendly hybrid car and drove down to Tunbridge, VT, for the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival.

The day was gray, chilly, and sometimes rainy (boy am I glad I wore my raincoat!), but I enjoyed the trip regardless of the weather. For one thing, it was the first weekend in October, and the trees were amazing. I felt like my mother: "Children! Look out the window! The trees are orange, children! Look at the trees, they look like they're on fire! LOOK AT THE ORANGE TREES, CHILDREN!!!" Mom, I totally get it now, and although I still reserve the right to make fun of you, it comes from a place of love and truth and self-mocking, and not just from a place of rolling-my-eyes-at-my-mother.

Also, when you fill a car with knitters, we're all very quiet -- until the sun goes down and we can't see to knit anymore. Then we get talkative!

The festival itself was very different from last year. It felt a bit lackluster, although I think I do like the Tunbridge fairgrounds (facility/layout/setup) better than the Essex fairgrounds. There were quite a few shops that were missing, and the selection of wares just wasn't as good as I remember last year's being. There was a LOT of sock yarn. Most of it was more than $25 a skein. And since I (a) don't knit many socks, and (b) don't have much money these days, I really didn't find a lot of options that excited me.

I still made out like a bandit compared with my road companions, though. I found a kit for the Tulip Cardigan, which I'd been wanting for about two years. It was reasonably-priced and everything. (I wouldn't have bought it if it had cost way too much, but the price was exactly what I would have expected to pay, which meant I didn't have to spend five minutes agonizing over whether or not to spend $5 more than I thought it was really worth.) I also found some beautiful handspun-and-died llama yarn -- a bunch of mini-skeins, 30-40 yards apiece, in about a DK weight. Perfect for the Fiddlehead Mittens, which I've also been wanting to make for a while but have agonized about buying all that yarn just to use a tiny bit of each color (and the designer's kits, while gorgeous, are expensive; plus, I'm just not that much of an internet buyer).

Also, there was one lonely farmer there, selling delicious sheepsmilk cheese! Soooooo yummy.

I didn't buy anything that didn't have a designated purpose, which is unusual for me. I tend to be a buy-now-because-it's-pretty-and-figure-out-a-project-later kind of gal. Last year, I came home with all kinds of random items. This year, I was much more focused.

All in all, I did enjoy the Festival. I was bummed for my friends, a couple of whom didn't find anything they really loved enough to purchase, but we had a great time together. I also enjoyed running into the blogless VTHuskies and reconnecting with her. I even enjoyed standing in the rain, waiting for the very slow catering people to make me a lambburger. Mmmm...delicious lambburger. And I got to look at the beautiful Vermont countryside, all aflame with the reds, yellows, and oranges of Autumn in New England. LOOK AT THE TREES, CHILDREN! THEY ARE BRIGHT RED! CHILDREN, LOOK AT THEM! LOOK!!!

Photoless Update

It has been toooooo long since I've updated! I have done a ton of knitting, it feels like, but have very little to show for it. Although I've done a ton of knitting, none of that knitting is actually done. Y'know?

Here's the basic role call of what's on the needles:
1. Annemor #16 (mittens): the hands are done, I just have to do the thumbs. Since I'm still not convinced I love the color combination, I'm giving myself a break for a while. I'm not ripping them out, though. There are enough people who *do* like that color combination that I think someone will want them. And since I am making them with the express purpose of giving them away eventually, that someone does not have to be me!

2. Minimalist Cardigan: I have knit and frogged the same darn sleeve three times! I am very worried about running out of yarn for this project, so keep re-doing the sleeve with a little less blousing -- and a little less, and a little less -- so as to have enough yarn to do the second sleeve. I've started on the second sleeve, but haven't finished the first yet, as I would like to make them even, at least, and if it turns out that I do have enough yarn to lengthen them past the as-written 3/4 length, I would like to do that, too.

3. Mittens for my neighbor Ben. This item gets its own blog post.


Also! Two weeks ago was the Vermont Sheep and Wool festival, now moved to Tunbridge, VT, rather than the oh-so-convenient-for-me (and it's all about me, right?) Essex Junction. I'll write another post on that.

And yesterday, Mango hosted yet another stash swap. Since I haven't purchased any new yarn since the last swap (hard to believe, but completely true!), I didn't have much to offer that was any good. But I did bring an apple pie pie, and it was yummy!

I've done a bit of a technology upgrade (i.e., I got a BlackBerry), but haven't yet figured out how to get my pictures from my BB to my computer. Or, rather, I haven't taken the time to figure out how to make them talk to one another. Funny how fall is a ridiculously busy time for a clergy person. Particulary one who doesn't have a secretary. Sigh -- one of these days. Meanwhile, I can write a post, but I can't put up photos yet. Soon. Things will get less crazy soon.

I hope.

Annemor #16

I had another trip at the end of August, a couple of days at my denomination's headquarters for a meeting. I boarded Plane #1 with Selbuvotter mitten makings in my bag: needles, pattern, unknown-brand variegated CC yarn (from the stash swap: I think it was Sweetea's?), and a skein of Blue Sky Alpaca's Alpaca & Silk, still in hank form. Fortunately, I had an empty seat next to me...

The flight attendant was completely fascinated by my yarn-balling activity mid-flight. She stopped and asked me what in the world I was doing. "Making a mitten," I responded. Of course! What else could I possibly be doing?

Anyway, by the end of Flight #1, I was almost satisfied with the length of the cuff. On Flight #2, I ended up sitting next to a colleague going to the same meeting, and he was thoroughly impressed with what I was doing ("You're using two different colors at once? Wow, you've got mad skillz. I don't think I know anyone who can do that." Um, you'd be surprised, friend.) and even brought it up two days later during the business meeting.

Once I got into the actual knitting of the pattern, I couldn't decide if I like the two yarns together or not. I'll keep going, I've only done about 8 rows of the pattern anyway, haven't even gotten to the thumb. But... the main color is kind of a weird wheat-yellow/celery-green, depending on the light (it looked really weird in the airplane light, above the clouds), and I'm not sure it's a pretty combination. We'll see. Since I've got so many projects in progress right now, it will probably be a while before I do any more significant work on this one.

Three BSJs in One Week...

...AAAA-hahahahahaha! Yeah, that didn't work so much.

Husband and I took a long road trip the first two weeks of August. And when I say "long road trip," I don't mean New-England-long, wherein driving for three hours is "SOOO FAAAARRRRR!" No, when we take road trips, we take road trips. 2,800+ miles in thirteen days. VT-NYC-DC-ATL-DC-VT. A real road trip.

We stopped in DC twice, on the way down for several days to visit Knitting Queen and several college friends who live in the DC area, and then again on the way up because some of those same friends were having a housewarming party and it was a good chance to see even more people I haven't seen since college. And, of course, since we're all at that almost-thirty time in life, everybody's having babies. Three different couples in DC are currently pregnant or have just given birth. In fact, one of those three couples had their baby during the week of our trip.

Three babies = three Baby Surprise Jackets.

I thought it was an ambitious-but-possibly-reasonable goal to work towards making all three BSJs during the first week of our trip. And, y'know, if I didn't get one of them done in the first week, I could definitely work on it while we were in Atlanta, and then do the gifting on our way back home. Right? Right.

Right.

First BSJ (the red one) took three separate cast-on attempts, which was most of our drive through the Adirondacks. That's almost six hours right there. Of just casting on. I didn't knit in NYC nearly as much as I thought I would, and the ball of 220 Superwash got really tangled in my purse and took nearly a day to untangle and re-roll.

(I did have an enjoyable subway moment, when the two young women sitting across from me in the subway car eyed me with envy as I was knitting, and then turned their conversation to dreams of what they'd like to knit someday -- if they ever actually bothered to pick up the needles. It was quite a hilarious situation, but contributed significantly to a need-t0-unknit-a-few-rows moment, which then started the oh-crap-what-a-tangled-mess phenomenon. That's what I get for gloating.)

I finally made some good progress on the red BSJ as we drove down the Garden State Parkway to DC/Baltimore. Finished it in DC, except for the sewing-the-shoulder-seams, and promptly lost it under stuff in the back seat of the car.

The second (blue) BSJ, I cast on somewhere between DC and Durham, NC, where we spent the night with some other college friends. I did much of the casting-on and knitting-up so much better the second time around... except that I accidentally cast on 155 stitches rather than 160, and didn't realize it until I was halfway through. I was NOT frogging several days worth of my work at this point (there was still one more BSJ to go, remember!), so I just reworked the math and kept going. But the extra math meant extra thinking for every row (wait, do I increase here, or do I increase there? How many stitches am I supposed to have on each side of the marker? How big should I make that middle section whose stitches I pick up later? ARGH).

I did not finish the blue BSJ by the time we got back up to DC on the homeward stretch of our journey. I didn't even finish it by the time we got back to Vermont, because I insisted on driving the whole way from Philadelphia to Burlington (at some point, my need to be in control of the car trumped my desire to finish the darn sweater). I finished the blue BSJ about ten days after we got home, because I wanted the needles so I could get started on the sleeve of the Minimalist Cardigan -- the night before I was taking off on my next trip. I finished the knitting, but not the shoulder seams, about 1 a.m. With a 6 a.m. flight the next day. Sigh.

One more BSJ to go. I kind of can't handle it right now, though, and want to finish my Minimalist Cardigan first. Looks like I'll need to knit the third (green) one on size 8s rather than on7s, and send that one to the biggest baby of the three.

BTW, on size 7s, one BSJ takes about a ball and a half of Cascade 220 Superwash. At some point, I'll likely make a stripey fourth BSJ out of the remainders. In spite of all the pressure I put on myself to do a bunch of the same sweater again and again (which could easily lead to me hating the pattern), I still adore the BSJ and will probably make a zillion more over the course of my lifetime.

End-of-Summer Update

I have been knitting a ton this summer. I have not been blogging equally as much. The real obstacle to blogging has been putting down the needles long enough to take pictures! Um, that and all the actual working I have done. My job really cuts into my blogging time. Funny how that works.

It has seriously been a "Startitis Summer." And I'm okay with that. Now that I have a moment to breathe (and to blog), here's a bit of an update:

Minimalist Cardigan is 70% done. The back and both fronts are done. First sleeve is started, just barely. I only have one skein left of the Lamb's Pride. Will I have enough to finish two sleeves? Stay tuned.

I have not worked on the Kiki Mariko Rug at all. It's huge and heavy, and I needed something lighter that I could carry with me in my gadding-about.

I really did quite a bit of traveling this summer, more than I have in the past, and it looks like the trend is likely to continue and I will become a prolific airplane knitter when I'm not using that time to do some undisturbed church-calendar planning.

Started on another pair of stranded mittens -- that's another post for another day. We also went on a two-week road trip, wherein I attempted to make three BSJs in one week, and failed miserably. That's also for another post. The point of this post, really, is to let you know that I am alive and well and knitting away... I'm just not writing much about it, but will pick that piece up again soon.

Taking Stock

Two years ago, I went to my denomination's big national meeting. And I got a job and a sweater out of the deal.

This year, I went back (it only happens every two years) as a delegate from Vermont, which sounds very important. (And it is very important, but it mostly means that I have a 6:30 a.m. meeting every day, and a voting card.) And I was extremely busy. So busy, I didn't have time to go check out City Knitting, the yarn shop in Grand Rapids that I wanted to visit. But JerseyKnitter went!

Thankfully, I'd brought yarn. Stash yarn, in fact. A very deep navy "Bulldog Blue" from Brown Sheep (Lamb's Pride Worsted). I'm working on the Minimalist Cardigan (Rav link). I got the whole back done while I was sitting in meetings, but then discovered on the airplane home that I'd missed some decreases for the underarms -- so I had to frog 7 inches and pick up the stitches to do the decreases. Argh.

Anyway, here's me blissfully knitting away in a business meeting. More pics of the sweater later. I've now got one half of the right front panel finished, as well.

NHM #1

I did it again! Another pair of mittens. These are NHM #1 [Rav link] from Selbuvotter. Took me a little over a week -- got a massive sunburn in the middle of the process, when I brought my sunscreen with me to World Wide Knit in Public Day at the park, but then didn't actually put on any. Awesome.

Main Color is Blue Sky Alpaca&Silk in Blush (veeeeery subtle pink), Contrast Color is Jojoland Melody (veeeery slight color-changing red -- there's green in one mitten and purple in the other).

I knit this up on 4s, thinking they were 3s. I discovered this mistake when I was at a friend's house for a quiet evening of knitting and realized that I'd been trying to make the thumb on short 5s, and it wasn't going so well. I reached in my bag and grabbed the long "3s" I'd used on the main part of the hand, and that's when I realized I'd done everything in 4s. (The Jojoland doesn't like 4s very well. Or 5s, for that matter. I wouldn't recommend trying it.)

At least I got to borrow her Knitpicks Harmony DPNs, which I'd been wanting to try. (Lovely, but I'm not going out of my way to invest -- my Brittany's work just fine.) They did the job, and I could definitely see the difference between 3s and 4s.