Bird Cage Mittens

So I am halfway done with the knitting on my birdcage mittens, meaning I have one mitten complete. I set my knitting down for about two weeks in the middle of it, and you can definitely tell right where I picked it back up again because the gauge changes so drastically. Also, my bind-off on the top is ugly. And the thumb. I do not like the way the thumb worked up. BUT! It turned out, and I'm pretty pleased with it for that reason alone - you can tell what the image is. That counts as a win in my book. Even if my technique does need some help.

In progress - you can see the bottom of the cage. 

I think the other reason for dissatisfaction is this: the sense that if my gauge hadn't gotten looser, I wouldn't be able to wear the mitten at all. I went down two needle sizes, and maybe only needed to go down one. But to be honest, it was more about which needles in my collection were available than the swatching I didn't do, and I had 3s and 4s, not 4s and 5s. So we'll see how the second one goes - I really like the look and feel of the tighter first half of work on the mitten. I've definitely got enough yarn to frog the first and knit a new left hand mitten with the leftovers from the skein if I need to. I think the skeins would almost make two sets of mittens, if I was careful with it.

A peek at the inside of the mitten. Eventually the floats will mat down on
each other to form a second layer of yarn to keep my hands extra warm. 

 These photos were taken probably a day before I set the project down for a few weeks, so the mittens look neat and tight up to about this point, and then they get a little raggedy. Okay, not even really raggedy. Just less tight. And I suppose that knitting looser meant that I stopped pulling my stitches too tight at the "corners" where my dpns met. Blocking should fix some of that, but blocking is not a cure for crappy knitting technique, even if it might hide some of my lesser failings!

Corrugated rib. I love it. 

I think I want to knit corrugated rib forever and ever. I love it. The way it looks, the way it knit up, the way it feels, the tautness of the fabric. I love me some lace, but this was an amazing thing to work up. Plus I love the sturdy-ness of it. Some mother somewhere created this stitch in the hope that it would keep up with her adventurous, curious children. Or maybe to put a cuff on a sleeve for a sweater with loose sleeves she'd created for herself. It seems so utilitarian and useful, but it's also really pretty. Form and function, hand in hand!

Basketweave Cowl Idea - WIP

I know I mentioned a basket-weave cowl in my last post. This is the very start of it. I'm very pleased with how the stitch pattern is working out - it looks nice and cushy and also a classic looking pattern. I'm working it up in the remnants of the brown eco-cloud. This project is also a way to work on my ability to connect something with a Kitchner stitch. I've cast on provisionally and it's really hard! Well, I mean, it isn't - once I got it, I got it, but until that point, I struggled. You can see the provisional cast on in the second photo. The grey yarn holds the loops for the kitchner stitch when the cowl is long enough. I do think I missed a loop somewhere along the way - something seems to have gone wrong. Of course, I am currently stalled out due to lack of yarn. I sometimes have to not buy yarn so that I finish other project which are languishing in a variety of w-i-p piles. I can think of four off the top of my head. Scratch that, five! I'm sure there are others that I would notice immediately if I went downstairs. 

I am a little stalled on my Abigail handwarmers. They look really pretty but I had hoped a) to have them done by now and b)to give them to my mom for her birthday. But as I've worked on them, they just don't seem right for her! BLARGH. This is very frustrating as I literally have three rows left on the first hand plus I think 7 on the thumb. So I should just get on that - and now I will know the pattern a little better. I am discovering that as much as I love the snowflake/star/flower of fair isle, I really dislike not doing pattern repeats. To do the "cuff", you knit the given pattern twice, which means you have to really pay attention to the pattern, and that makes the knitting a little more frustrating. I have to be sure to have the book, and I really have to do a good job of tracking where I'm at. As I sat in the airport in Denver last weekend, I noticed that I skipped an entire row in the hand pattern, so some of my diamonds don't have points. Oops.

On an entirely unrelated note, I am trying to figure out a good schedule for blogging. I am finding that I am very tired after work, and sometimes leave projects sitting for weeks on end. I think that if I could get into a blogging routine it would by necessity force me into a knitting routine - I don't have much else to write about! Plus, I enjoy both knitting and blogging, and unfortunately, that means they are often the first things to fall off my plate of "important things I must do this week". One of my new years resolutions was to work on that; looking back over January and February tells me I haven't been doing the most awesome job of that. So wish me luck while I try to be better about scheduling my life! There are so many interesting things for me to do with it, if I can just make the time to do them!