Squirrel and Oak

An FO, a frustration, a confusion, and some growth.

FO:


Pattern: Squirrel and Oak Mittens, from Hello Yarn
Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes, in Chocolate and Fern (I think)
Needles: Brittany dpns, US 5
Begun: uhhh..... not sure (some time during the grant-writing-hell)
Completed: 2 December 2006

Thoughts: I really enjoyed this pattern, although they are a little small (I should have measured my row gauge) and I could not, for the life of me, do the thumb in the fair isle pattern. You'll see that I "cheated" and made solid color thumbs.


These things don't really bother me. I intended these to be an exercise in stranded knitting, and I learned a lot. My tension is a little wonky -- blocking might fix that, but it got cold here suddenly and I just decided to wear them with out blocking. I modified the date at the top -- 2007, baby. I like the idea of imbedding the mittens in time, even if they aren't necessarily of heirloom quality. All in all, I'm pleased with them. I like knitting mittens. I see many more in my future.

FRUSTRATION:

I've been working on a pair of Christmas socks that are of my own invention. I took sketchy notes on the first sock, which I finished on the plane to Hawaii. Today, after finishing my Conwy socks (to be debuted tomorrow, when they are dry), I sat down to plug out the second of these new beauties. I knit six inches down the ankle to the heel flap when I noticed something was wrong. Yep. I forgot that I did ankle decreases on the first sock. I have to rip out everything I did today, plus some of the knitting I did before, to add these decreases. The frustration is overwhelming. I fought the urge to scream, folded them quietly, and put them out of sight. I'll return to them later this week.

CONFUSION:


The poor bush outside my front door. It was so confused by the warm weather we've been having that it's started to bloom. I bet those buds are not happy with the 35 degree weather that arrived with me from the North!

GROWTH:


Look closely at this picture. See those dark threads hanging down the front of my knitting? Guess what that is? A lifeline. Yep, I finally learned my lesson and used a lifeline. I'm making up a pattern, and I wasn't sure if my "experiment" was gonna work. So I ran a lifeline through figuring I could rip back if I failed. Glad I did. The experiment did indeed fail. Frustration-free, I ripped back and kept right on knitting. Hurrah!