Finished: Long Cuff Gloves

These gloves started off life as socks, or sock legs at least. I decided to turn them into gloves after trying the leg part on my arm to see what the k3xp3 ribbing looked like stretched out.





I followed a basic pattern from The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns and tamped down my obsessive urge to make them match perfectly. I actually purposely made them not match. (Insert deep, cleansing breathe.) And I love them! Truthfully, I thought it would be too fiddly to match the colors up perfectly on the fingers of both hands. I figured completely not matching would be better than almost but not quite matching.





I even dared to put on my wool winter coat in the middle of summer to see how they looked. The long cuff in going to be nice in the winter; the sleeves on the wool coat are a tad too short and I hate having cold air blow up them.

Having never made a glove before, I thought there was no way I'd get the fingers to be even remotely the same (size that is, not color!). Happily, things seemed to work out fine with little effort on my part.

Specs:
Opal 6-ply sock yarn, color #1127 (from the first batch of 6 ply released, around 2004 maybe?)
size US1 bamboo dpns
The Handy Book of Patterns by Ann Budd, Women's Medium, 7 stitches/inch

I probably could have gone with the small size, there is about an inch of extra fabric on the palm of both gloves. But the fingers to fit perfectly.

Anniversary

Today is our three year anniversary. This is the best, most recent photo of the two of us I could find.



O'Hare Airport, about 5:00am, on our way to Las Vegas in October 2007


The traditional gift is leather and we talked about purchasing a new leather couch to celebrate the occasion. Unfortunately, as much as we need a new couch (our current one is covered in a bed sheet to hide the rips) it is just not financially doable right now.

Instead,we splurged a little on something we found and couldn't pass up:





A Wii Fit! I was so excited that we found one. This was actually the last one Game Stop had in stock and as we were paying a lady came in and asked for one. Hooray for good timing! I have basically played nonstop since we got it. It's so much fun and actually a decent workout. I am not a top athlete by any means, but I do exercise regularly and worked up a sweat on the Wii Fit.


ETA: I realized after reading this that this post makes us sound very financially irresponsible. Believe me, we are not. But sometimes you just need to buy yourself something fun!

Organization

Yesterday, I met my Mom at IKEA to find some new furniture to organize my craftiness. I ended up with a bunch of nice stuff that I still need to finish setting up, but one thing I can show you is this drawer unit to hold my knitting tools.





This was an unfinished IKEA FIRA drawer that I covered in scrapbook paper with Mod Podge.

Top drawers: metal dpns, various tools, crochet hooks





Middle drawer: bamboo and birch circulars and dpns



Bottom drawer: metal circulars





I really love how this turned out. Since I finished, I've been looking around thinking "can I cover this in paper?".

Winter in, um, June?

Remember the sock I started during our ill-fated camping trip? I finished the ribbed leg a few nights ago and stuck it over my hand just for fun. (Do you do that too?) I realized that I would make a great glove or mitten cuff. I've never made a glove before and have been wanting to for a while now.




I feel slightly silly knitting a wool glove in June - strange, since now that I think about it I didn't feel silly knitting a wool sock in June. But the plus side is that I will actually have a completed pair for wool gloves ready and waiting for winter.

I'm using the numbers from The Handy Book of Patterns , and sort of fudging things to fit the knitting I had already done.

Flowers, just to make you (and me) smile.

My sock yarn from Little Knits arrived last Friday. That definitely made me smile! It is all I can do to keep myself from going back and ordering more.

Camping, with a Side of Tornados.

It’s hard to believe tomorrow is Friday again. Or that it is almost the middle of June already. But I am going to post about last weekend anyway, ignoring the fact that it is closer to this weekend.

Hubby and I went camping last weekend at Chain O’ Lakes State Park. It is close to home so we didn’t have to spend a fortune on gas but still had a three day weekend in the wilderness. At least, that was the plan in the beginning.

It was raining on and off during the day on Friday but nothing to dissuade us from getting to the campsite around 4pm and setting up our gear. We spent most some time in the tent waiting for the rain to stop but then enjoyed the rest the night with a campfire and s’mores. (Mmmmmm….) I did manage to squeeze in a little knitting too.





Saturday morning we went fishing, ate lunch (not fish, heh) and then sat around deciding what to do next. Unfortunately, the weather decided for us. We spent almost two hours in the car hiding from a thunderstorm. It would occasionally let up and we’d open the doors to get some fresh air and tempt fate. We were had just started talking about being wimps and going home early when the park ranger came through and “strongly advised” everyone to leave since there was a tornado watch in the southern half of the park (a different county from where we were). So we quickly packed up all of our muddy, soaking wet gear during a break in the rain and headed for home.

We had been home for about an hour when my Mom called my cell phone to say they had a tornado literally go through their back yard, about 60 miles south of were we were. Incredibly, there was no major damage on their property. No major trees down and only minor damage to the house. They talked to some storm chasers who were following its path, and there had been a lot of damage behind it. My dad told me the house was plastered with bits of debris and some sort of pink Styrofoam insulation. They said it was crazy loud and pretty scary. No doubt. I am glad I wasn’t there! But very very glad everyone is OK. Here is a photo of their next door neighbor’s tool shed stuck in a tree, along with a large tree completely uprooted.





Later reports said that 6 tornados touched down in the path of this storm. It could have been so much worse.


FYI, my car is now a muddy, stinky mess inside. Blech.

Stash Enabling.

Little Knits has Opal sock yarn for 50-68% off. They still have a wide selection of colors left, including solids and 6-ply.

I bought two balls of the 6ply solids (mocha and chocolate) and two of the 4ply solids (cream and light blue). Because sometimes you don't want your socks to scream at your co-workers.

Just sayin' is all. =)

P.S. They also have many other yarns at reduced prices, if socks aren't your thing.

Required Daily Knitting

It is been rare for me to sit still and knit during the last few weeks. I really should force myself to knit, write it on my calendar or set an alarm, since once I get going it is very relaxing and enjoyable. (But this is obviously news to no one.)

I have this strange thing where even when I feel like knitting the first few rows are difficult to get through. I have to force myself to keep going and not just put it down. Once I am over this hump, you’d have to pry it out of my hand to get me to stop. Bizarre, I know.

With that in mind, I have been knitting some and have photos to prove it!




These are my Mom’s Broadripple socks. She picked the yarn out at Stitches Midwest last August and I am determined to finish them before a year passes. (Aren’t I a good daughter?)

I am also close to finishing a super secret project, which I will be able to show in a few weeks. If you are on Ravelry and are curious, you can take a look here.

Moving update: Still have about a dozen packed boxes, and piles of stuff that need to be put somewhere, once I decide where somewhere is. I am afraid that if I don’t get my act together and finish all this soon, I’ll be walking around these boxes for the next year.