Mittens and Mysteries.

I didn't realise it had been so long since I blogged!  Time flies.

I have been working on my Christmas gift knitting.  I love these quick and easy Owl mittens and eventually found the perfect tiny buttons for the eyes - that was the hardest part!  They knitted up very fast and I would definitely make them again, even if I substitute another pattern on the back.  The thumb shaping and increasing is easy and looks really neat, its a great shape to wear too. All in all a BIG thumbs up for these.

The yarn I used was Misti Alpaca Tonos Worsted. Lovely and soft and hopefully warm to wear.

The next pair of mittens weren't quite so quick and sadly the pattern had a mistake in the repeat sequence.  On the first mitt I thought it was me so I tinked back but could see afterwards that I still hadn't managed to put it right.  When I made the same mistake on the second mitten I read the pattern more carefully and noticed that the 4 row pattern sequence was wrong on row 13 so a row of the pattern was missed out.  Next time I will just follow the sequence myself - which is easily memorised, K 2 rows and then K2, P1 for 2 rows.  I wish I had knitted the thumbs before carrying on with the rest of the mitten as I can clearly see where it was picked up but at least both thumbs are the same.  These took much longer to knit but are sturdy and a nice subtle and textured pattern for a guy.

The yarn is Naturally Drift 10ply and is a slightly felted yarn which knits up really nicely.

I finally finished my Westknits Mystery!  I have never knitted such an unusual item nor taken part in a mystery that was mysterious right to the very end! What helped was that there were so many stitches it couldn't be opened up (without using a bazillion extra cables!) to see the shape.  The cast off was over 800 stitches!!!  Of picot!!!!  I can see me getting a lot of wear out of this but probably won't be making another one for a long time.  It took almost 3 full skeins of yarn for a start!  I think it would be nice in a 2ply or light fingering yarn to give a smaller, lighter shawl but really, one of these is enough. It's too distinctive to have more than one of.....in my opinion anyway.

I have spent a little bit of time in the garden lately, planting a hedge with a lot of help from my generous sister-in-law (she did most of the heavy digging as I've been feeling so crappy lately).  I need to go and get a few more plants as I miscalculated the amount I needed but they won't take long to plant now the trench is done.  Next on the list is planting a bay tree and getting some more herbs in.  My herb garden grows every year and I love stepping out the front door for fresh herbs when I'm cooking.