FO: Scarf and gloves. Unmatched, naturally.

Once I had gotten all the gifties sent off in early December, something remarkable happened.

I stopped knitting.

Really!  I've had no motivation or inspiration at all.  It's weird, but it's cold enough out so that I think it will hit me again any day now.  I mean, I have a few projects on the needles, but I'm chipping away at them so slowly that I can't tell if I'm progressing at all.

Soon.

I did finish two smallish projects though.

First up, a luxury gift.  Tiny they might be, but made out of the softest cashmere.

I had two skeins of Debbie Bliss Cashmere in my stash forever.  The really lovely yarns tend to stick around for a while- I'll knit with all Cascade 220 down to scraps with no complaints, but I have a really hard time deciding on projects with the good stuff.  Since this yarn only has a miserable 49 yards in a skein, I was having a hard time choosing.  The only thing to make that small yardage-wise would be a hat for a baby, and I didn't know anyone currently expecting who wouldn't throw it in the washer-dryer without blinking.

Another option?  A really simple pair of fingerless gloves.  Not the most exciting thing in the world, but so soft and warm I almost kept them for myself.  

The pattern (and you barely need one) is from the Knitbot Essentials book.  They are called "70 yard mitts", but I made mine a bit longer and used every last bit of 98 yards on mine, and the police haven't showed up at my door yet.

Another gift:

I started a Hitchhiker scarf at knit night, and soon had used up an entire skein of Online Supersock.  This pattern was so simple, worked entirely in garter stitch, and everyone who saw me working on it could not believe that someone had created yarn that stripes so perfectly on its own.

It made for a perfect gift: it's a scarf, but a very unusual one, as it's asymmetrical.  I might just make some more of these if I ever get around to it. You can almost take a nap and not screw it up.

Oh, and just a bit of gloating as to what I got at a Christmas swap with my fab knitting group:

A skein of Wollmeise!  The lusted-after handpainted yarn from Germany.  I have no idea what I'll do with something this colorful, but I'm still in the stages of petting my precious.

Didn't think used to kind of be a knitting blog?

FO: Terzetto Lace Mitts

These took me forever to make.

I'm usually into making really sensible, functional knitwear. If I can't wear it and get it a little dirty, why bother? I'll never wear it.

Yet I cast on for the most delicate, lacy, frilly, girly things I could find anyway. The Terzetto Lace Mitts by Jackie E-S. Le Sigh.

As I was working my way along the first glove, I realized I probably wouldn't even wear these on the Metro, as the entire metro system smells like excrement and I couldn't expose my delicate beauties to such vile smells. So where would I wear these?

To Monet's Garden, that's where!

It's a lovely place, and pretty much all the women who visit there wear their loudest flower-print dresses.

I'll write more about our garden visit later. But these gloves. The first one took me a month to make, the second one took me 3 days because I actually sat down and worked on it. They are on size 0 needles and really fine laceweight yarn, but the openwork patterns mean they fly along.

My only modification is I made the hand one less lace repeat than called for. I tried them on and declared them long enough.

The yarn is Gaia lace from the Sanguine Gryphon (discontinued, of course). The color is "forget me not", which is so appropriate for the setting, no? It's a 60% silk 40% Cashmere blend and Oh OH OH so lovely. I have no idea if these will actually get a lot of use, but I'm happy to have them in case I feel like being fancy for a day. They aren't terribly warm, but so soft and comforting I had a hard time taking them off.

FO: Glorious Cable Mitts

I'm a bad knitwear role model when it comes to my hands. I dislike the bulk of knit gloves, and only wear mittens if it's so freezing cold out that your fingers need to snuggle up next to your other fingers for warmth, like puppies. I do love the elegance of leather gloves, especially if they are lined with something wonderfully soft and warm, like cashmere or deerskin.

A few of my friendos in my local knit group made these Glorious Cable Mitts. I really liked the delicate but complex cabling and the fine gauge.

I started with a skein of A Verb For Keeping Warm Annapurna Cashmere in the Peacock's Tail colorway. It's dyed with Indigo. Aside from the gorgeous color, it's lovely yarn- a blend of cashmere, merino and nylon. Soft, and after a wash, the cashmere blooms and fills in the fabric nicely.



There was a little bit of "crocking" that is, my hands turned an alarming shade of frostbite blue. That's totally normal with Indigo, and after I soaked it I got hardly any bleeding at all. You have to think of indigo as not just a dye, but a live organism, so you learn to love its quirks.

I used size 0 needles, but realized pretty quickly that I'd have to fudge the pattern a bit as they were going to be huge if I didn't cut down the stitch count. 72 stitches were a bit too many if I wanted them to fit.



I ripped back, cast on 62 stitches, and then re-worked the cable pattern so that it would be centered on the new stitch count.



I love them.



They keep my hands free to fumble through my bag, find my phone, wallet, keys, metrocard, whatever. All that ribbing means they fit nice and snug. I love the cabling detail- it took a bit of time to work the cables but nothing so bad that it couldn't be done. They took me a little less than 2 weeks from start to finish. I didn't have the goal of having them Rhinebeck ready, but it worked out that way.



The thumb gussets are brilliant- I think I've only ever done an "afterthought" thumb, which just sticks out like a hitchhiker. These lie nice and flat without any thumb bulk to get in the way. They keep me toasty warm as they are snug around my pulse points. I did a stretchy bind-off so I can wiggle my thumb out and roll them back if I'm doing something where I don't want to get them dirty. Still, the ribbing keeps them snug across my hands so they don't get saggy baggy.



Someone stopped me to admire the gloves and asked me, "Can I just get those at Walmart or something?" to which I replied non-verbally with a careful peeling off of my new fingerless gloves and giving the poor ignorant soul a sound slap across the face with them.

No, actually, you can not get these at Walmart.

Notes on a Scandal knits

Has anyone seen "Notes on a Scandal"? Yes, I know it's more than five years since it's been out, but I'm a bit behind the times. It's a deliciously wicked psychological thriller with Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. It's about emotional blackmail with two equally despicable women and their conniving co-dependent friendship. A bundle of sunshine and flowers, really.

Anyway, I was in awe of some of the great handknits that Cate Blanchett wears throughout the film. She is seen in a delicate pink lace scarf:


(all images are from fox searchlight films)

She also wore several fab cardigans that I couldn't get good screenshots of, but one of them was a seafoam colored one with big cables running up the front in a fuzzy mohair blend.



Best of all were her fingerless gloves:



They appear to be either cabled or linen stitch on the palms, with large slinky-like welts at the start and end. Maybe not entirely practical, but I must have a pair of these. I have made it my life's mission to dissect these like a frog in middle school science class (everyone now: "Ewwwww!"). Eventually, I plan on having a similar pair. Wish me luck.