Now if I could only figure out how to download the medal

The Wintergreen mittens were finished around 4:00 pm est on the final day of the Winter Olympics. I can't say that I really enjoyed knitting them - it could be the pattern wasn't fun, but more likely I don't like knitting to a deadline that isn't a real deadline (e.g., Christmas, a due date, etc).

















I think I screwed up the thumb opening - or maybe there's something I don't understand about "work in pattern for 5 stitches, work 9 st in scrap yarn, sl 9 back to the left needle and continue working in pattern." Doesn't this essentially result in a grafting the scrap yarn into the knitting? And if so, when you remove the scrap yarn, how exactly do you pick up the top stitches? The bottom stitches are simply loose stitches - no problem. The top stitches, however, aren't really loose stitches, even though they are not stable, either. I just picked them up "doubled" - and k2 tog as I joined the yarn to make the thumb. I am sure this isn't clear but the instructions weren't either. I don't know what type of thumb this is (e.g. afterthought?), so I couldn't even look it up online.

















But anyway, they are done and it wouldn't have been an exciting Olympic finish without the thumb crisis.

I'm most proud of the fact that I finished these AND kept db fed, clean, and happy AND kept to the editing schedule for my book manuscript AND did my regular teaching/meeting work AND kept to my usual yoga schedule AND didn't get in horrible fights with Todd because of all the stress.

Time for a comeback?

I admit that the last time around, I thought the whole idea of the Knitting Olympics was kind of dumb. Now that I am older and possibly dumber, I am actually considering participating.

Loyal readers will recall my Wintergreen mittens tragedy, wherein I forgot the mostly-knitted project on an airplane and by the time I realized what I had done, it was Too Late. I did go and buy the exact same yarn for the project again, but on a whim decided to knit the Lillyfield mittens instead. Unfortunately, even though I was basically making gauge, it became clear about three quarters of the way through the first mitten that they were going to be immense, and so, after several months of denial, I bit the bullet and frogged the whole damn thing. For the record, Famous Knitblogger Grumperina actually had similar gauge problems with her Lillyfield mittens, and one of the reasons she is a Famous Knitblogger is she re-charted and otherwise rejiggered the entire pattern to make the mitten fit properly. I am not nearly that committed a knitter or, for that matter, blogger. Which may be why I am not famous.

I really did like the Wintergreen mitts, though, and I did pay for the pattern...you see where I'm going with this. My knitting Olympics project could be the Wintergreen mitts comeback - a potentially happy ending to a heretofore sad story.

The only question is whether or not I should use the yarn I have. If I do, I accept that the original gray/white wasn't quite high contrast enough for the Wintergreen design. In the interest of perfect closure, I should use my original yarn color choices, or should I keep the white and buy a new contrasting color? And should I play on the Yarn Harlot team or figure out the Ravelry Olympics scene?

Mittens and blues

Classes start on Thursday. I am dreading them though not for any particularly good reason other than perhaps all the time I have spent on planet lactation has made me feel like an alien about to land on the hostile planet of academia. I really, really, really don't want to store my breastmilk in the department refrigerator. That's what the icepack box in my breast pump bag is for, right?

I made these cute little baby mittens out of some worsted scraps in an effort to chase the blues away. My mood was not all that improved, but they are very cute and also very warm, thanks the fair isle motif. The pattern is a Ravelry freebie, searchable under "two colour mittens" by Abigail Welbourne.















I put one on db's hand and her eyes got very wide and then she began waving her hand around in the air, staring at it and giggling. She has clearly learned how to get on my good side.

An extremely beautiful oven mitt

Checking gauge might have been a good idea. I am proceeding with the at this point possibly very delusional hope that the mitten won't be too big for the tiny, thin bones of my should-have-been-a-pianist/osteoporosis-here-I-come hand.






















But the pattern itself is very pretty.












































Maybe felting would shrink it enough? Does alpaca even felt? Or maybe I need to think about who among my friends has big hands.

I have also started one of three baby projects for one of three friends due in May. All three are Canadian - two, however, are living in exile from their homeland, so that kind of blows this theory I was working on where the sex lives of Canadians are largely controlled by the extreme Canadian weather.

Filatura deCrosa has recently come out with a new line of colors for its (machine washable) Zara merino line. It's a bit hard to see from the photo, but there's a lovely heathered twist mixed in with the colors.

















It's quite disheartening to think of them covered in baby puke.

Getting back on the wooly horse

I've got a little therapeutic no-brainer of a project going on right now - something to give me instant knitting pleasure after mitten tragedy - pictures in a day or two, after I dig out from under a mountain of final grading. It is a bad time of year to be a professor.

In other news, I finally got myself back to the yarn store to buy replacement alpaca for my re-knit of the Wintergreen Mittens, but I am finding that I lack the heart to restart them. Instead, I was thinking maybe I'd try my hand at either Eunny Jang's Anemoi mittens:

















Or maybe the Lilyfield Mittens:






















Which do you think would look better in a gray/cream combination? I'm leaning towards Lilyfield at the moment, but I am not sure I love the cuff - solid 1 x 1 ribbing might look better.

Wintergreen Mittens

Why no photos of my progress on the Wintergreen Mittens? Because when I was coming back from the %^$#@&^ AAA conference, I forgot them on the plane. By the time I realized what I had done, it was too late. Apparently a ziplock bag containing two balls of exquisite alpaca yarn and one and a half beautiful mittens (one was completely finished and SO beautiful...) looks like garbage to a plane cleanup crew. So my mittens are gone. I am hoping posting this will help me move from anger to acceptance.

I made a leaf!

Most of this was accomplished waiting for a late flight from Chicago last night. It remains to be seen if this mitten gets finished waiting in line at my polling station.

The definition of insanity

I know that I was - er - cranky about the pattern errors in the last Kate Gilbert design I knit, but I decided that as long as I knew that it would probably mean a whole new world of pain, it would be okay to try another one of her patterns. It's a basic seduction - dysfunction - seduction - dysfunction cycle. Currently we're in a seduction phase and all is well.

I've had my eye on the Wintergreen Mittens for a long time - I think they are pretty and I was also curious to learn the color cable technique, this despite the fact that in 16 years of knitting, I have never done colorwork (Sheldon looks like he involved colorwork, but it was really just stripes. Honestly.) So why not learn colorwork the hardest way possible - in the round, with cabling thrown in for good measure?


















So far, so good. The yarn is my favorite: Blue Sky Alpaca sportweight.