A nasty virus has sapped my knitting mojo for the past several days, but I’m climbing back. And, I’m concentrating on Christmas knitting.
I fished out my Fiddleheads from the UFO bin and recast on, changing the colors up a bit. I actually like the splash of yellow in contrast to the blues and greens. Perhaps it speaks to my Swedish heritage. Both are completed as of yesterday, the second one currently blocking. Here’s a shot of mitten #1 in all it’s blocked glory.
The lining does add a nice touch. However, in the future, I’ll make certain to use a slightly lighter weight yarn and go down one needle size. They’re a bit bulky despite the liner having fewer stitches than the outer mitten. I do love me an I-cord cast on, though, and this one gave the mitten a nice finished look.
Speaking of future mittens with liners, I cast on Northman Mittens for my nephew’s Christmas prezzie. David Schulz of Southern Cross Fibre designed these. Though I had plenty of yarn in my stash to do these with, I didn’t have anything tweedy like the Portland Tweed 
that would knit up with tiny little specks of gingersnap hues to pick up on the color of the liner I plan to do inside. In keeping with my lighter weight liner/smaller needle idea, I’m using the Aran weight Classic Elite on the outside and Blue Sky Alpaca’s Brushed Suri which is DK weight for the liner. I also plan to drop down to a size 5 needle when it comes time to pick up stitches for the liner. These are a quick knit on size 6 needles and I’m counting on a good soak and blocking to even out the stitches.
And it’s taken me this long to knit something out of my handspun! I’m my worst critic, but was forced out of my comfort zone for The Knitgirllls SSK KAL Extravaganza to finally take the plunge and actually use some of the yarn I’ve spun. It’s not that I’m golluming it – I’m just not that great of a spinner yet to actually love the finished product more than my stash.
I started out with Cloudlover’s Evergreen 85/15 BFL/Silk Roving from their Fiber Club.
I spun it into singles, two plied it and it became this:
The rules of the KAL were that in order to win the most raffle tickets for door prizes at the Super Summer Knitaway,- remind me to tell you about that! – the project had to be spun from fiber from one of the vendors, (Cloudlover), then knitted up into a project designed by one of the teachers, and Wendyknits was chosen for the first KAL, and though I had a heck of a time settling in on a project of hers that wasn’t too lacy in order to show off the handspun, I finally chose her Super Slouch Hat.
And other knitting? Of course I’m involved with your swap project – perhaps I’ll start posting some spoilers here…but nothing too obvious. No, I have not uploaded the yarn onto my stash on Ravelry, as I know what a stalker you are! How’s mine coming?
~Purled
