Getting my groove back

KIP was great last night. We had a gift exchange, and I brought home a ball of 100-percent hemp yarn and a container of Burt's Bees Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Creme -- yum! I've been wanting to try hemp (knittin' it, rather than smokin' it, at this point in my life), so that will be fun. And almond is my favorite scent for lotions and cremes of every sort. The package was brought by Elizabeth, who called it the "before-and-after gift." The yarn does look like it could do some serious digit damage. Thanks, Elizabeth and Bonne Marie, for putting that whole thing together! People brought some fun little gifties.

I entered a yarn store for the first time in ages on Wednesday afternoon. I had just gotten a new winter jacket and thought I could whip up some mittens. I used the knittingpureandsimple.com free pattern and had me a new pair of mitts by Thursday at lunch. With Clark's vest seeming to take forever, instant gratification was very welcome:

The extreme fraternality happening here doesn't bother me since they're for me, and I really like them. An FO! A timely blog entry! A photo! I'm getting back into it. 'Bout time!

Mittens

Start/finish: Dec. 15-16, 2004

Yarn: Noro Yoroi

Needles: 10 1/2 double-points

Remarks: The pattern is great. This is the third time I've made mittens from it; twice I've modified the pattern to suit a yarn with a smaller gauge. It's the easiest pattern to modify ever! And this Yoroi is whack stuff. It's three rather thick and lofty plies loosely wrapped around a core about the thickness of buttonhole thread. I don't know if it's the way I feed the yarn through my right hand, but the plies kept bunching up around the core, just past the part that was going around the needle. It didn't really seem to affect things much, and I love the fabric, but I would shy away from making anything bigger unless I could figure out how not to have that happen. The white cuffs are the absolute end of a skin of big yarn...ummm, what was it?...from which I made that Real Simple hat of a couple years back.

Comments

[monica]

Mittens look fun! How was the yarn shop? Worth a visit?

[carolyn]

you're a very cheerful bunny today! :)