Warm hands warm heart

Have I used that blog title before? Either way: Hello again! I hope you've had a lovely summer so far? I have had a busy one and, contrary to expectations, the rest of it is going to be even more hectic. But there has been knitting:

Or at least, finishing, of a knit started an embarrassingly long time ago. I've been tinkering with this fingerless mitt pattern off and on over the years and have come up with a few versions:

Lace, solid, stripe... I have a nice striped version with reds, too, that I wear a lot to brighten up a fall outfit or to layer over black gloves in winter. 

The lace ones didn't quite work out - the panel needed to be set farther away from the thumb in a definite left and right pattern. I loved making them though so at some point I'll have to resolve that problem.

The solid ones: easy, and a great way to show off hand-dyed sock yarn. 

That's my red stripies there, making a little cameo.

The stripes are the best because they're designed to let you use up the ends of a skein of self-striping sock yarn. The downside: SO MANY DECISIONS. When I got to the tops of this latest pair, I was picking up a new scrap for the sake of just two stripes.

This time around I'm planning to make actual thumb stumps, which means I have to decide what colours I have available and like best to go with the stripes I have. In other words, don't expect to see a finished set next week! I'll have something else to show you while I procrastinate on committing myself. 

Meanwhile, it's very very hot here and will be for another few days, so I should not be thinking about hand warmers. I should be thinking about how best to use up our bumper crop of cherry tomatoes!

And enjoying the cooler evening temps in a chair by the hydrangeas, where our earless bunny (they were lost in a horrible accident) hides out in the shade.

Or, you know, frantically revising my novel. (yeah, that's the one.) 

Thanks for stopping by again after my little break, and I look forward to seeing you again next Saturday!

  

 

Springtime with mittens

I got thinking today about my old-time twined mitten obsession and decided to take a glamour shot of one pair, out on our sundrenched, springtime deck.

The yarn I used for these was hand spun, by me, from a wool/mohair blend hand dyed by my friend Sylvia. And they were my second pair, so there is no excuse for my having spun the yarn in the traditional way instead of in the reverse, so that the twining would have gone easier.

(When twining, you twist two strands of yarn around each other and knit with one, then the next, then stop and untwist the tangle your two yarns have gotten into because you didn't twine with yarn spun in the reverse direction. It makes mitten production very, very slow.)

The beauty of twined mittens is that they are super warm. And why not: you have two strands of yarn throughout, twisted at every stitch so there are no holes for wind to breeze through. The problem they pose is the same. I mostly wear mittens out on walks, but because I am a brisk walker my palms are damp after ten minutes, and halfway through my loop I have to take off the mittens altogether.

In the background: the first step in Pete's plan
to thicken up the small patch of grass in our back yard

My mystery novel SNOWED did not make the shortlist for the Debut Dagger Awards this year, but it's still a winner with me because one of the three main characters is a textile fanatic (hello), who makes most of her own clothes to suit her preferences (Um, no, I am not that committed.) There's a murder in this story, naturally, and this character goes off to the victim's outdoor memorial service wearing mitts I imagined to be like these ones. This is another satisfying element to writing fiction: you get to add in bits of things that you yourself enjoy.

Earlier this week I was sent flowers as a thank-you for something I did a while back, and they were stunning, but around the time the Debut Dagger shortlist was announced without my name on it, two of the flowers decided to shed their petals. I swear, one of them made an almost-audible sound as I passed, a kind of a Poof! just before ten petals collapsed to the mantel. Might have been a sign?

The fallen petals: INCREDIBLY SOFT.

It's just as well though, because not being shortlisted frees me to get back to work on the current novel in progress. In this one, which skews closer to Suspense, I'm humouring my love of fabric with a main character who lives out of a capsule wardrobe, the better to cut costs and stay mobile. She has a sweater she wears with everything (the story is set in an especially creepy October) and every time I reference it I picture a giant basketweave pullover my older sister knit in the 70s on oversized plastic needles she never used again. Actually this is not how I describe the sweater - the colour in the story is more mustard than orange the texture more Aran than Basket - but I picture my sister's all the same. 

Some of the writing for this *might* happen on our back deck, but not right away because it's blossom time and I don't concentrate well when surrounded by bees. 

That's a pretty good canopy there, don't you think? We trained our lilac through a custom gap in the fence to make this happen. Unfortunately we forgot we'd also be making a lot of fallen leaves and bark happen, without the ability to raise a sun umbrella without cutting precious light from the lilac. Eating at the table beneath is always an adventure.

Sitting is good though. So good I'm going to head out there right now with a cup of tea and a book, before I make a start on supper.

Hope your weekend's been absolutely lovely so far and gets better as it goes on, and I'll see you next week!

A look at crafters past

Earlier in the summer I visited the Waba Cottage Museum, a hugely enjoyable place for lots of reasons, not least its setting.  Pictorial proof:

The cottage

The lake beyond the cottage

But let's be serious, we're makers here at Hugs, and if anything is hugely enjoyable, there is going to be some textiles in there somewhere.  In this case, the textiles are the natural result of many of the artifacts at the museum having been donated by local families, real people whose ancesters lived in the area for a very, very long time.  All the most home-related items are gathered on the second floor, so you can immerse yourself big time.

I admired these handknit baby sweater and pants and mitts, thinking of how cold and snowy it gets in this part of Ontario in winter...

And I was impressed by the variety of quilt stitching...

But I was wowed by the sight of sewing machines and spinning wheels galore.  It reminded me, not for the first time, of Les' response to my having bought a spinning wheel: that when he was a kid on his parents' farm you could see a spinning wheel on the curb at every garbage collection.

(Pretty sure that wasn't a "you're crazy" in disguise, though on reflection it sounds like it... still.  It was affectionate and engaged and that's good enough for me.)

Sorry I couldn't adequately compensate for the bright sunshine from the window, ahem.

I've seen a few very old wheels this summer and I still can't quite imagine myself making one work, I'm so used to my own.

What I could imagine using was this little item I'd never seen in person before:

Yep, that's cinder block - the original cottage was demolished and this one is a mostly faithful replica

It's a teasle.  I don't know whether you've read the Little Grey Rabbit stories but I love them for the resourcefulness and make-do attitude of LGR, who even learns to make lace with bobbins just to decorate a special bonnet for a friend.  Anyway - Squirrel, one of her housemates, uses a teasle to brush out the tail of which she is so proud, so I knew they were sort of brushlike.  But when you touch the real thing?  WOW.  Those points are strong.  And also: sharp.

There was one thing at the museum that still amazes me though, and it was a pair of hand knit mittens hanging over the side of a little basket.  The tops were the widest and roundest I have ever seen on a mitten and I picked up one of them for a closer look at how the decreases were done.  This is what I found:

I don't think I have ever come across so much darning - from this angle, it's barely even recognizable as a mitten.  And its partner is the same.

There are many explanations for why one might choose to stitch up the entire palm and inner thumb of two mittens rather than knitting a new pair - poverty, love of the original mittens or their long-gone maker, the appeal of a cushion on the working part of the hand, simple economy, expediency - and with the exception of 'poverty' they all spell beauty to me.

It is truly wonderful how yarn can become something important enough to labour over like this, and then remain important enough for subsequent generations to value enough to donate to a museum to offer mute testament to those past residents' lives.

Have you been to any good museums yet this summer?

Knitting sock yarn into gloves

I just love the look of gloves with the fingertips cut off, but I've never knit more than a thumb because fingers: they look so complicated.  To be honest, even a bit scary.

Now though, I feel sure that neither my wardrobe nor my life can be complete without owning a pair of really nice fingertip-free gloves.  So I am knitting some.

I did say scary, right?  Try getting all those points on an airplane, and I haven't started the fingers yet.  I should probably get the thumb onto some waste yarn or stitch holders, and now that my weekend audiobook has released its grip I can actually go downstairs to forage for same.

I'm not sure this is an entirely good idea, but I seem to be improvising the pattern as I go.  I did start with an actual pattern written by somebody else, and I tried very hard to stick with it, but it turned out everything the pattern said to do was something I wanted not to do.  I'm pretty sure I'm even coming up with a new sort of thumb, in spite of having designed one that made a lot of sense to me a couple of years ago.  Probably that thumb idea will not work out: it's the way thumbs go.

Meanwhile, I quite like the way this one stands out from the rest of the glove, at least when it's in repose, and the shadows are playing on it.

The yarn itself: so spectacular, so out of production.  It's Viola yarn.  And I'm so glad I bought rather a lot of Viola and then never knit it because Emily has such a gift for piecing together colours such that they don't pool or stripe but just look companionable, and it will take me a long time to knit through my stash of her work.

Did I mention it's sock yarn?  Choosing to use it for my hands was kind of torture because I bought it thinking how lovely and restrained it would look as socks - and it would be good if I had at least one pair of lovely yet restrained handknit socks.  But then I told myself I would get to look at the yarn more if it wasn't stuffed into a pair of shoes at a great distance from my admiring gaze, and cheered up about it.

This colourway is one of my most favourites - it's called Orchard and I kind of don't care that I want the gloves for Spring and the colours evoke more in the line of Fall.   I just loooove them.

Okay, enough wistfulness - it's back to work for me.  Have a very, very good day (maybe with an apple in it?) and I'll see you tomorrow!

Two-End Mittens, homespun edition

I did so many things over the weekend! but taking advantage of having another person around to have pictures taken of my newly completed homespun mittens was unfortunately not one of them.  So when I realized it was Sunday and the next time I could wrangle somebody into helping me out would be just as the sun was setting, I improvised.

I call this one, 'picking up the Gramma step' (the hunk of wood born of a need to help Gramma into the pickup truck at the farm, then painted red for pretty):

And this one, 'hands up!':

'Prayer':

'Arty Nature Pose':

'Climbing the wall':

'Mail order mate':

Ugh, I know.  Time to quit captioning and just talk mitts.

These ones are so not as elegant as the fingering weight version, where the twist is tight enough to reflect light.  They are much more rustic and up close, even fuzzy.

I like the effect I got of both horizontal (from the colour shifts in the wool before I spun it) and vertical (from alternating two independently-spun cakes) stripes.

And they fit, even though one is still a bit shorter than the other from the variation in yarn diameter that still seems to come naturally for me with handspun.

In a word, or rather three, I love them.  Without even knowing whether they will be warm enough on a cold day.  And I really need to get going on a matching hat... but that's another story for later in the week and so far, it doesn't have a happy ending.  Stay tuned!

(and have a great day, 'kay?)

Two-End Mittens, glamour edition

You saw pictures of these in progress last summer, but here is the finished version of my twined mitten project:

The pattern is 'Two End Mittens' by Carol Rhoades, which is included in Linda Ligon's 1987 book Homespun, Handknit.  The book is out of print now, but you can still get copies at used bookstores or borrow them from the library.  The library is where I found it first and then I hunted around at Biblio and Alibris to find a used copy of my own.

I loved this pattern right away - the photograph just sang to me - but I wasn't sure I could master the technique.  A couple of years ago I was able to take a class in twined knitting and that helped my confidence, but the point of twined knitting is warmth and I didn't want to bother unless I had the warmest possible yarn.

Eventually, I decided that was the romney/mohair blend I buy from Stoddart Family Farm.  How I ended up thinking I would spin the mitten yarn myself I don't know - probably it was because the pattern is in a book of patterns for handspun yarn?  But when I looked at my finished handspun I didn't think I'd get gauge so I went with a fingering weight yarn I'd bought ready-ready made.

Just before I started I found Theresa Vinsen Stenersen's very good article on twined knitting on Knitty, which was helpful because by that time I'd forgotten what I'd learned in the class I took.  Once I got to work though I found this style of knitting is pretty logical; as long as you unwind the working yarn often enough, it's a very simple technique of knitting with one strand of yarn and then the next, so that the carried yarn traps more heat inside and blocks more wind.

Casting on proved interesting.  I could have just done my usual longtail method but I knew there was a specific technique for twining and I had a copy of the then-newly-released Cast On, Bind Off by Leslie Ann Bestor at my desk.  (Incidentally, this turned out to be one of the strongest selling new knitting book titles this year and I'm not a bit surprised.  If you don't have a copy yet, you should definitely put it on your list - it's the sort of present anybody who loves you would be glad to give!)

In fact, the book does give instructions for a twined cast on method, but I preferred the look of the Two-Colour Braided technique so I went with that.  It was so easy to follow and even easier to do... especially the fourth time.  I kind of messed up as late as the third (overexcitement I'm afraid) and didn't bother correcting it, so there's a blotch on one part of on mitt's wrist.  I don't worry about that any more because it's always under my coat cuff anyway.

A long while ago I read a story on Yarn Harlot about a friend's 'dress mittens' and the phrase really stuck with me.  In my world, mittens are for play and gloves are for dress - and that's not super practical because you get even more cold when you're dressed up.  You're not running around and being silly (much) when you're walking sedately to the theatre so there's no chance of getting overheated.  Furthermore, the friend's dress mitten had fingertips like the toe like you'd find on a sock, not a nice rounded end.  I found it very strange, and over time, very very appealing.

So I love the fingertips on this mitten most of all.  Well, next to the fabric I got from the combination of romney, mohair, fingering-weight yarn, and twining.  These are the dressiest mittens I have ever seen and I can't believe I made them.  At this weight, it turns out they aren't warm enough for a day within three degrees of freezing (Celcius) but they feel incredible inside.  And for a transition mitt, they do a great job.

A final remark: I never did get gauge, even with the fingering yarn, so after a couple of false starts I settled on a different number of stitches to cast on, thumb-gusset rows to knit, and thumb-stitches to work from.  I also adjusted the stitches on my needles when it came to the fingertip decreases, so as to have an ergonomically correct left and right mitten.  These fixes were all very easy, quick, and logical to make because all you have to do to double check them is slip your hand into the work in progress and adjust accordingly.

Come back next week for a look at the heavier version I made next!  And in the meantime, have a fantastic weekend, with something nice in it just for you.

Progress report: knitting, weaving, procrastinating

I have kept up with the Experiment Socks this week, but the real news is...

The Twined Mittens

I finished them late last night, but this is how far along they were by late afternoon.

They don't stand up on their own any more, being more than a bit top heavy, but they fit perfectly.

My only disappointments are

1/ one is slightly longer than the other (yay for the unpredictability of handspun!)

1/ the fingertip decease is off by about one stitch, just enough to drive me crazy feeling the seam on the tip and nail of the two closest fingers, instead of on their sides.

I'm considering ripping back and fixing that one, but there is so much halo and density to these mitts I'm not sure I could even find the end where I ran it in, so as to pick out the grafting.  Maybe the problem will resolve with blocking?

(I know, I know.)


The Experiment Socks

One is nearly at the toe, the other is just out from its heel gusset.  I could be done this weekend, especially if I go on watching complicated programs with subtitles.  If it weren't for those, the mittens would have been done two days ago and the socks would not be as far along as they are.  Lesson learned: always have some majorly plain knitting on hand because sometimes it's all you can manage.


The Weaving

I haven't talked about my loom in ages because even though it's out, and set up with a nearly-finished scarf, and looking sadly at me whenever I pass it, I have not done a speck of weaving since I started the Experiment about two weeks ago.  Oops! Especially since that scarf is supposed to be a Christmas gift.  I really need to get back on the ball with that but first, there's procrastination


The Procrastinations

Things I should be doing:

1/ winding skeins into cakes
2/ weaving all the cakes into scarves
3/ knitting the experiment socks
4/ finishing the lace socks (on hold for a missing lace chart)
5/ finishing my first 'gnarled' sock (on hold for math)

Things I am doing instead:

1/ wanting to make another pair of mohair mitts
2/ realizing I don't have enough mohair handspun
3/ thinking about spinning some mohair yarn
4/ obsessing about a cowl idea I have no yarn for (how??)
5/ plotting out a hat to match my handspun mitts
6/ wondering whether I should commit to a Pilates class
7/ jotting down notes for some cloth bags I want to make
8/ sneaking cloth from storage for pressing and cutting, see #7

Oh, and grocery shopping too, because things are getting pretty dire around here.  Think today should be a coffee day, or will tea do?

Hope you're able to stay awake for everything you want/have to do today, and I'll see you tomorrow!

Twined knitting revisited

Since my original twined mitts haven't had their big reveal yet I shouldn't be showing these really, but I feel the need to confess that I spent a lot of the weekend working on a second pair of twined mitts, from handspun yarn.

I think these might end up being warmer than the first pair:

They are so dense, they can stand up on their own.

I'm not sure what weight this handspun ended up being, because I am an inexpert hand spinner and the yarn's diameter (and degree of twist) varies only a little less than in previous efforts.  But I am guessing it's sport, and that its mohair halo adds a little heft.  I'm knitting on fairly small needles for the yarn and that's giving me a close-worked fabric that seems flexible enough for movement.

There's no way for me to be sure until they're done and it's cold out whether these really will be warmer than the originals.  But if you think these look good, you should see them.  (I really need to do that big reveal.  Maybe later this week.)

Deep breath.. here's exactly how bad I was on the weekend...

This is the other mitt.

Yep, I have practically finished an entire pair of mitts in three days that I should have spent on my experiment socks.  (I did get the second sock past the gusset though - do I get a biscuit?)

I do have one problem - other than sock guilt, I mean - and that is the colour.  I quite like it in isolation, but the more time I spend knitting these mitts the more I realize the following:

1/ my warm everyday winter coat is black, but the 'dress' one is grey.

2/ my warm everyday boots are technically black, but I'm leaning toward my newer ones which are white.

3/ I have zero hats in either black or this colour.

4/ I didn't think this through when I cast on the mitts.

Possible solutions

1/ embroider the back of the mitts with some more coordinate-y yarn plus some white handspun that I love.

2/ knit the leftovers from the mitts into a hat with help from a black or white yarn, fast.

3/ get over myself.

4/ buy new boots and a dress coat to match the mitts.

5/ see #3.

6/ wear black leather gloves with the dress coat, like a grownup would do.

Thoughts?

In other news

Supporting claims that dedicated knitters are part SuperHuman, while I was neglecting my socks in favour of knitting mittens in an impossible colour I was also baking shortbread.

For 12 hours.

Pretty sure I got about 28 dozen cookies baked and cooled and into the freezer.

Gonna be ready for this year's cookie delivery to all the neighbours, even if I end up getting sick again this year two weeks before Christmas.

(of course, I still have to wrap them all up in their paper lunch bags, and prep tags to tie on with yarn scraps, but that's the fun part.)

Okay, it's time for me to go be a productive member of society far from any cookie temptations.  Hope your day is very very productive, and that any temptations are the kind there's no guilt for giving into.  See you tomorrow!

Light at the end of the twined mitt tunnel

Leaving aside the terrible photography I've committed on this rainy day, I bring to you a great big Yessss!

With a small patch of nooooooo! because after meeting my goal of finishing up to the top decrease on my Ravellenics Mitts last night (very late) I have not yet knit any of said decrease today and I need to move on to the thumbs in the morning tomorrow.

Though I can't actually do the thumbs tomorrow, as I will be busy all day. 

Which means the busy things probably just won't happen because I really want these mitts into their bath by Friday night.

Still!

Nearly done!

I waited all day to get sunlight to take pictures of my exciting mitten progress and ended up missing the only ten minutes between rainclouds because I was throwing stuff out from a closet I can now see into the back of.  It's quite liberating if you don't look at all the stuff that's still on the floor and isn't going back in.  But there was a reward, because my efforts produced not just dust bunnies: I also got my hands on the solitary miniature twined mitt I made in a class I took over a year ago now.

(Don't tell: all this time I've been vaguely aware of possibly not actually twining these mittens, but doing something entirely different by accident.)

Well, whew, because when I spotted the mini mitt I hastily turned it inside out and compared the stitches as best I could:

Yeah, I know.  Rain + Flash + Totally Different Yarns.  Still: it's the same stitch.  I'm okay.

Now that I'm nearly done I should be thinking about all kinds of other exciting knitting projects I could do, like the shawl I'm dying to cast on or the Bob Socks I wouldn't mind finishing or the hat that's on to its crown.  But you know what I've got on my mind instead?

Knitting more twined mitts.

With the bulky yarn I spun for this project in the first place.

Le sigh...

(they'd go faster the second time though, right?)

Ha! we have twined mitten progress

I was beginning to think I would never finish my twined mittens before the 2012 Games are over, and then it occurred to me that all I need to do to make it is Actually Knit.

Here is what an hour on the dock before supper, plus a more practical viewpoint on yarn-untwisting as I twine my way along, did for Mitten #1:

In spite of the view looking like this,

and this.

Honestly I do find the whole cottage thing so dreamy, the downside of which is that I am still having difficulty remembering which house I am in at any given moment.  Today after working too long on a huge reorganization job in the basement I thought: time for a swim! and then remembered there is no lake in my back yard in Toronto.  Harumph.

Let's look at the mitten again, shall we?

I'm going to have to pick up more stitches for the thumb than the pattern calls for, and I suspect the hand will be a bit on the snug side, but it should fit all right.

Anyway I am not ripping back or adding on more stitches at this point... especially since I realized I am busy all weekend and will have to be done by Friday or miss the deadline for my Games team at Ravelry.  Which would be terrible, not least because I would have no more motivation to finish these things before winter comes.  Just today for example, putting away some ribbons, I spotted the tail end of some Noro yarn I've been using to tie up gifty parcels and thought

must

knit

Noro

even though I don't have any other Noro in the house. 

I'm in a dangerous position I guess is what I'm saying here: the days of my caring about just one project at a time seem to be long gone.  And I only sort of miss them.