Boasting

Hey Rachia, recognize this? It's the lovely merino you gave me for my 50th. All done! I am so excited that I can finally boast about three knitting projects! I knit mittens up for the kids as Christmas presents and couldn't show you all until they were unwrapped. I found the patterns at SpillyJane's site through Ravelry.com
(or http://spillyjane.blogspot.com) and bought Phoebe's first.

It is called Wintertime for Adriana which makes sense if you are family.

However, the pattern and I had a vicious argument. I followed instructions and ended up with a mitten for a giant. I was pretty sure it was too big but felt I needed to knit up to the thumb before being sure. That happened in January. There is a half abandoned mitten somewhere in my stash. I was so annoyed I bought the pattern for Lucas' mitts and started his.

"Mittens with Pints On" had a similar problem and despite going down a needle size and cutting out a few stitches, it was still huge. That was February.

I finally ended up having to take a column of pattern out of each design and hope for a good fit. That was during March and April.

I needed a change and knit my own Christmas present,

in May.

I returned to knitting for Phoebe. That took care of June and July.

The patterns are well written and the problem was that I used a Shetland wool and refused to go down to a 2.0mm needle because I didn't want to be knitting for months and months. As it was, these mitts took months and months to knit anyhow. It pays to follow a pattern most of the time, there's a reason the designers have knitters test them out before they sell them. Now that I know the Shetland is going to make a huge mitt and since I refuse to give up the Shetland, I can adjust any future patterns. I have a cunning plan for two gifts already.

August is when I knit all the booties for my mom's charity "Happy Hands" and I don't recall all the rest, but I've been showing photos as it all happens so we are now caught up.

Except for the cute hat I knit for Natasha. She was in and out of the house so fast over Christmas I didn't get a chance to photograph her. Phoebe had the idea to knit her a cap that would fit underneath a riding helmet. While I did that, Phoebe knit a beautiful cabled cowl to keep Natasha's neck and face warm. Anticipation...I will photo her all bundled up the next time she visits.

And for those fans of Steve and his banjos, there was a slight hiccup when Steve couldn't tear himself away from building the banjo and even though I had made the dinner for a change, he didn't find it a compelling reason to stop.


Here it is.....
Yikes, he's been asked to share....

but finally gets to play it himself. I'll let you know if he ever gets it to tune.