Fits and starts

There's not much going on here at Chez Seedless Grape this week. I have much more time to knit these days, but I have very little to show for it because I'm currently trying to knit up my small but burgeoning handspun stash, which means that I'm ripping as much as I'm knitting. Seriously: I've ripped and reknit the Burning Bush AND Plum Blossom yarns at least five times each in separate projects. With the Plum Blossom yarn, this was partly because my spinning was uneven and my gauge at one end of the yarn was significantly different from my gauge towards the middle and other end of the yarn, which made for a very wonky Zeebee on the first attempt. With the Burning Bush yarn, I'm trying to eke out an adult-sized hat with the limited yardage I have, and after multiple tries with different needles and patterns, I'm developing the sinking feeling I don't have enough. Sigh.

But, setting all that aside, I still have a bit to blog about, because the Noro log cabin blocks continue apace:


I have 15 so far and I'm almost finished with the 16th. This weekend I'm going to try to cobble another block or two from the remnants I have, because I've run out of new balls. I'll see how far I can get with the remnants before I stock up on some more Kureyon (because yes, Noro has amazing colorways, but it's a bit spendy, no?).

A quick spinning run-down

There was a bit of spinning and a bit of knitting over the past Month o' Work, but I didn't really have time to take photos or blog about it. As a result, my knitting FOs--two Utopia hats--have gone on to their recipients without being blogged about, and my WIPs have been ripped and reknit multiple times and no one's the wiser except for me.

I did manage to get a couple documentary photos of my latest spinning endeavors, though. This is mostly because I haven't figured out what to knit with these spinning FOs, so they're marinating in the stash and are still in my possession to be photographed.


Above is 4 oz. of merino fiber that I got at the Boerne Fiber Festival last year. My goal in spinning this stuff up was to spin as thin as I could manage to see if I could make sock-weight yarn. The finished yarn is slightly heavier than most sock yarn, but it's not so thick I'd call it sportweight or DK. I was pretty pleased with it as a first attempt at sock yarn. I can't remember the yardage (I really should write these things down), but it should be enough to make at least a pair of ankle socks. Either that, or I'm going to use it as a liner for some mittens, because it's nice and soft. But I'll have to see if I can find some coordinating yarn/fiber for the outside of the mittens.

And . . . I also got into the Hello Yarn February-April Fiber Club earlier this year. I'm a biiiig Hello Yarn fan; I really love Adrian's sense of color. Here is the February fiber--5 oz. of BFL in the "Insect Wings" colorway:


I loved this fiber; the colors are so nice and saturated, and the finished yarn turned out nice and soft. I managed to get about 140 yards of heavy worsted weight yarn and I think I'll try to get a hat or two out of it.

I can't wait to see how it knits up because I tried to fractal-spin it (at least, I tried to do what I understand to be fractal spinning). I took the entire length of roving and split it in half lengthwise. I pre-drafted one half and spun that on to one bobbin. I took the other half and split that in half lengthwise to get fourths; then I pre-drafted the fourths and spun them on to another bobbin, one after the other, trying to start each length of roving from the same end to keep the color repeats in order. Then I plied the singles off the two bobbins together.

I'm not sure if my efforts at fractal spinning will result in anything special, especially since I'm not perfectly sure that the color repeats are in the correct order (I'll admit I was careless). But I'm sure the finished fabric will be fun and soft, anyway; the color and the fiber really do most of the work!

I'm going to try to get better photos of the Insect Wings yarn this weekend--it's just too gorgeous not to try. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

I got through the tunnel, and wow, it's bright out here!

Where are my sunglasses?!?!? I'm blinded!

It's April 1, and it's only fitting that I finally get to post after three of the most exhausting weeks I've experienced in a long while. Wow, it's nice to be back!

As I've mentioned before, I'm currently clerking for a federal judge in Houston. Since federal judges have a pretty sweet deal--life tenure with guaranteed pay--the federal judiciary uses something colloquially called "the six-month list" to make sure judges are processing their cases at a reasonable rate. Basically, every six months a list of shame gets published, listing all the motions that have been pending before each judge for more than six months. Most judges, like mine, try to keep the number of motions on that list down as a matter of pride.

The six months tick off every March 31st and September 30th. In an ideal world, someone working under a six-month deadline would be able to budget her time efficiently and spread out the work so that the last few weeks before the deadline aren't crammed. In the real world, though, people file TRO applications, there are trials, there are emergency motions, etc.: there are a million extra little things that demand attention right away and mess up even the best-laid plans.

To make a long story short: The six-month list is why I sort of dropped into a hole and didn't emerge for three weeks. I have been knitting and spinning here and there, and I have lots of blogging to catch up on, but mostly my life in March was consumed with work. It was sort of awful, and really exhausting, but it's over now (yay!) and "regular" life, with knitting, spinning, cooking, and blogging, should return soon.

And guess what I have to look forward to?


YES! One of the highly coveted Fiddlehead Mitten Kits from Adrian of Hello Yarn. Eee! I'm so excited. I had a really, really frustrating day about a week and a half ago, and to take a break from work, I surfed on over to the Hello Yarn website and saw this kit for sale. I didn't have to think twice: I immediately clicked "buy," whipped out my credit card, and forked over my money.

The yarn is BEAUTIFUL. I love, love, love the colors. I almost don't want to knit up the kit because I think the little skeins of yarn are so cute!

Anyway: regular blogging should return soon. Hope everyone has been doing well!

Felty oven mitts

I wrote up the pattern I developed for my felted oven mitts. This was mostly so I'd remember what I did, since it took a lot of trial and error (read: lots of ripping), but having gone through the trouble of jotting it down, I figured I might as well share it in case anyone else wants to make some mitts for themselves.

So, without further ado: The Felty Oven Mitts!

(And, because I'm kinda sorta a lawyer, and most definitely not a professional pattern designer . . . the obligatory disclaimer: There may be some mistakes in the pattern. I haven't test-knit what I wrote down to make sure it actually jives. I plan on knitting some more mitts and will follow what I've written to see if it makes sense, but in the meantime, if you find an error or some unclear language, please let me know (and accept my humblest apologies). Happy knitting!)


Yarn: 4 skeins Cascade 220
Needles: 16" US10.5 circs; US 10.5 DPNs
Gauge: not important
Notions: waste yarn to hold thumb stitches; stitch marker

Using circular needle and yarn held doubled, cast on 45 stitches. Being careful not to twist, place marker to mark beginning of round and join yarn for knitting in the round. Knit 5 rounds. On sixth round, *k8, kf&b*, repeat between *s until end: 50 stitches. Knit 24 more rounds for a total of 30 rounds from cast-on edge.

Next, shape the thumb gusset as follows:

Round 31: k24, kf&b, kf&b, k24.
Round 32 and all even rounds during thumb gusset shaping: k.
Round 33: k24, kf&b, k2, kf&b, k24.
Round 35: k24, kf&b,k4, kf&b, k24.
Round 37: k24, kf&b, k6, kf&b, k24.

Continue increasing in this manner for a total of 26 thumb-gusset rounds: 76 sts. On next round, k25, place the next 26 stitches on a holder or waste yarn, cast on one stitch using backward loop method, k25 to end of round: 51 sts on needles; 26 sts on waste yarn.

On next round, k25, k2tog, k24: 50 sts on needles. Knit 20 rounds.

Shape top of mitt as follows:

Round 79: *k1, ssk, k19, k2tog, k1; repeat from * once: 46 sts.
Round 80: k.
Round 81: *k1, ssk, k17, k2tog, k1; repeat from * once: 42 sts.
Round 82: k.
Round 83: *k1, ssk, k15, k2tog, k1; repeat from * once. 38 sts.
Round 84: k.

Continue decreasing in this way for a total of 10 rounds: 30 sts on needles. (Switch to DPNs when necessary.) For remaining rounds, shape as follows:

Round 89: *k1, ssk, k9, k2tog, k1; repeat from * once: 26 sts.
Round 90: *k1, ssk, k7, k2tog, k1; repeat from * once: 22 sts.
Round 91: *k1, ssk, k5, k2tog, k1; repeat from * once: 18 sts.
Round 92: *k1, ssk, k5, k2tog, k1; repeat from * once: 14 sts.

Place remaining sts on 2 DPNs (7 sts on each DPN). Cut yarn, leaving a long tail of at least 15". Graft the stitches together using kitchener stitch.

Knit thumb:

Remove thumb stitches from waste yarn and arrange on three DPNs: 26 stitches. Place the mitt before you so that the thumb gusset is on the left-hand side. (In other words, the mitt should be oriented so that you can put your right hand into the mitt and your thumb will poke out of the thumb gusset.)

Round 1: Join yarn at the first live stitch at the inside crook of the thumb, leaving a tail of 6-8", and k one round. When you finish knitting the live stitches and come to the gap at the inside crook of the thumb, pick up and knit 2 stitches, place marker, pick up and knit 2 stitches: 30 sts on needles.

Now you'll need to work a few decreases at the inside crook of the thumb to eliminate the four extra stitches you picked up to cross the gap. The current arrangement on your needles is as follows: Marker, 2 picked-up stitches, 26 "regular" gusset stitches, 2 picked-up stitches. Your working yarn at this point should be ready to knit the first of the 26 gusset stitches.

Round 2: k 26 sts, k2tog. Your working yarn should now be at the beginning of the round, where your marker is. 29 sts on needles.

Round 3: K2tog, k25, k2tog. 27 sts on needles.

Round 4: K2tog, k26. 26 sts on needles. You have just decreased the four extra stitches on either side of your marker.

Knit 8 more rounds. Then shape top of thumb as follows:

Round 13: *k1, ssk, k7, k2tog, k1; repeat from * once: 22 sts.
Round 14: *k1, ssk, k5, k2tog, k1; repeat from * once: 18 sts.
Round 15: *k1, ssk, k3, k2tog, k1; repeat from * once: 14 sts.
Round 16: *k1, ssk, k1, k2tog, k1; repeat from * once: 10 sts.

Place remaining sts on 2 DPNs (5 sts on each DPN). Cut yarn, leaving a long tail of at least 10". Graft the stitches together using kitchener stitch.

Weave in ends. Use the long tail at the inside crook of the thumb to close any holes there.

Make 2 mitts and felt them in your washing machine. I usually use hot water, add a small amount of laundry detergent, and turn the dial on my machine to "super" wash, which agitates the laundry extra hard for a few minutes before beginning the regular cycle. I have a small "economy-size" washing machine, so it usually takes me at least one and a half washes before the mitts are felted to the size I like. I recommend checking on the mitts every five minutes or so from the beginning to monitor how they're felting. As they start felting and shrinking in size, check them more often. When they're a size you like, you can run them through your machine's spin cycle to get as much water out of them as possible.

Shape and let air-dry. Bake up something yummy and use mitts to protect your hands!

Logging another log cabin

Work is slowly starting to bury me alive. There's a big deadline at the end of March, and before I'll see the light at the end of the tunnel, I have to deal with some projects that are particularly tricksy, boring, complicated, or a combination of all of the above. There's knitting (and even spinning!) going on, but not much time to blog about it.

In the meantime, though, I'm truckin' along with my Kureyon log cabin blocks. I just finished another one yesterday and now have nine blocks, with the tenth on the needles. One block is drastically smaller than the rest--I must have been knitting more tightly for that one, for some reason--so I may have to reknit that one. But otherwise I'm really pleased with the way these guys are coming out.

Hope everyone is enjoying the new month!

After

And here are the felted oven mitts! I loved them and was so pleased with how they came out. I definitely will have to make some for myself in the future!

Hello, we are nice and felty.

I realized only after I had given the mitts away and was preparing these pictures that I probably should have thrown in the quarter again for scale. Oops. The finished mitts came probably 4 to 5 inches past my wrists, just like regular oven mitts should.

As I've said before, it took me a while to figure out the proportions of the mitt. Technically, the top part of each mitt (for the fingers, above the thumb) ended up being longer--i.e., had more rows--than the bottom part (below the thumb). Unfelted, it looked a little strange, unintuitive, and top-heavy. My gut instinct was to make the bottom part longer, because I think of oven mitts covering a good part of your wrists and forearms.


During felting, though, the mitts shrank in size perfectly. I think the proportions are just right, and the fabric is nice and thick. Yay!

Pattern: My own
Needles: 16" US10.5 Inox circular; US10.5 Brittany Birch DPNs
Yarn: 4 skeins Cascade 220 (I don't have the skeins with me, so I don't have the colorway number, but . . . they're red, obviously)
Recipient: Newlywed co-clerk and hubby!

Before

One of my co-clerks got married this past Saturday. She's mentioned before that she'd like to start cooking more often after she gets married, so to get her started, I bought her a red Dutch oven (brand = Tramontina--one of Cook's Illustrated's top-rated Dutch ovens) and made her a pair of matching felted oven mitts. It was hard to get the red just right in the pictures, but it's a nice deep red; hopefully you can imagine it even if it doesn't show up right on your monitor.

Here is GPG's artsy-fartsy rendition of the unfelted mitts:


And here is a plain old documentary-style post, with quarter thrown in for scale:


I only realized as I was preparing the pictures that position of the quarter on the top mitt makes the mitt look a little like a red guppy with a fat lip! The quarter probably doesn't provide much scale, but basically the mitts were big enough almost to reach my elbows when I put my hands in them.

I'm very pleased with the way the mitts turned out post-felting. I fiddled around with the pattern and frogged at least three times before I was satisfied with the position of the thumb and the general proportions of the mitt. Pictures of the felted mitts, plus a pattern (written mostly so I don't forget what I did), will come soon!