In which she proves that there really IS knitting going on...

If you read my blog, you would think that I spend all of my time wrangling minions, untangling ravaged stash, returning damaged stash and acquiring more stash, with no actual knitting going on. Well, yes, most of my time is spent in these pursuits, but not all of it. While FO's are scarce at times, there is occasionally a little actual knitting that goes on around here.

I recently joined the "Defeat the Winter Doldrums" swap, and made this cloth and scrubbie set to send to one of my pals...


The dishcloth is the DW cloth, a free pattern that can be found here. It was a fun and quick knit and great for variegated yarns. I've never made a scrubbie before, but this one was a snap.... The scrubbie is also from a free pdf pattern called "Dishcloth Duo," which can be linked through this page. The scrubbie as written in the pattern is cute, but comes out very small, so I modified the pattern to super-size it! I just increased the number of CO stitches and proportionately increased the number of rows knit, and got a bigger and better version.

Here's a little yarn pron interruption.....

It's the Knitpicks Bare laceweight I also included in the swap box. I have never seen this yarn in person, so I took a chance on ordering it, but I was pretty impressed with it when it arrived. (It was tempting to keep it for myself, but I didn't). It is very soft and cushy, and has excellent yardage for the cost. I even think it looks very pretty undyed as well. I'll definitely be keeping this in mind for a future project of my own!

Back to the FO's---here's a little something I knit for myself with a lonely skein of Noro Kureyon #134 from my stash...

My first pair of fingerless mitts! (modeled by cute hubby so I could take the pic)...He's so good about the knitwear modeling. Remember this? (scroll down past yet another yarn tragedy...). I'm sure he'll be thrilled about me sending everyone to have another look at that one...heh!

Anyway....I've never made mitts before and wanted an easy pattern to master the thumb-knitting thing without too much fuss, and this pattern certainly fit the bill. The pattern is "Maine Morning Mitts," from The Knitters Book of Yarn. (Great book, btw, if you haven't seen it.)

I believe the pattern is also available free on the web, and is linkable on Ravelry. The pattern is pretty straightforward and clear, so if you haven't knit mitts before, this is a good place to start. I only modified the pattern slightly by knitting on two circs, and picked up a couple of extra stitches around the thumb hole. They are comfy and fit very nicely, and after a long soak are now soft and cushy!

One warning if you use the pattern---it calls for one skein of Noro Kureyon, and it does mean the whole skein! So if you only have one, make sure you don't waste too much because it cut pretty close for me with only a couple of yards leftover! Of course, your mileage may vary, but I'm just sayin'...

I have a couple of other recent FO's, as well as the contents of the awesome swap box I received from my fab swap pal Katie, but still waiting for enough light to take some pics of all of it (what happened to all of our sunny days?...wahhh). As the queen of lollygagging and general procrastination, I can't say for sure when that will be, but we can shoot for soon, I hope...