Almost Complete Mitts

My Kindness Mitts are working up in a flash! I have both mitts knit and just waiting for thumbs!

I worked these up on size 5 US short circular needle. They might be a bit baggy on my hands and I could have probably used to reduce my stitch count by about four. But they aren’t fall off loose and should be perfect driving mitts! Now I just need to dig through my messy craft room and find some size 56 dpns!

Happy knitting!!

 

FO Friday: Kindness KAL 2019 Shawl

It’s Friday and I have an FO that has me bursting with happiness. My Kindness KAL 2019 shawl is off the blocking mats ready for a close up!

Pattern: Kindness KAL 2019 shawl by Jaala Spiro

Yarn: Hedgehog Fibers Merino DK in Ink and Salty Tales

Needle: US 7

Mods: Added 12 garter eyelet grows in the final section before the bind off to use up my skein of blue yarn.

It really just looks so good no matter how you twist it! I think it looks gorgeous all laid out. But it also looks amazing wrapped around your neck with all the color and texture changes.

I ended up using basically a full skein of the Ink (blue) and 90% of the Salty Tales (grey speckle). This means this shawl consumed 409 yarns of DK weight yarn and weighs about 215 grams. It will be soooooo warm and smooshy this next winter!

I really gave this shawl a good stretching and my finished dimensions ended up being 41 inches by 56 inches and 23 inches deep at the point. I have a full skein of the Ink leftover and I think I’m going to see what matching accessories I can eek out of that to go with this shawl!

Happy Knitting!!

Kindness Unblocked

I WON AT YARN CHICKEN! And here she is….my finished Kindness KAL 2019 shawl in all her unblocked glory!

I squeaked by with just the tiniest bit of blue yarn left without having to break into the second skein. I did have a more substantial ball of the Salty Tales grey color left. I’m using Hedgehog Fibers Merino DK by the way. The blue color is Ink. I even managed to weave in but not trim my ends from all the color changes.

As you read this my shawl has already been soaked and is drying on the blocking mats. Jellybean helped me and we broke out my blocking wires and really gave this shawl a good stretching. In doing this we found ONE dropped stitch. I calmly grabbed my double ended crochet hook and laddered it back up and then secured it with a piece of waste yarn on the wrong side of the work. No one but me will be the wiser!

Humidity has come to Kansas for summer and so I’m not sure how long this puppy will take to dry. Jellybean keeps checking at least every hour to see if it’s done. I think maybe I’ll set a fan on it to speed up the process for both our sakes!

Easy Goes It…Plus Some

The middle of last week I reached the end of the pattern instructions for my Easy Goes It shawl. I still had a ton of yarn left as the put up on my skein was bigger than the pattern called for yarn. (And I was even using a size 7 US needle instead of the pattern recommended US 6 to make my gauge bigger.)  What is a knitter to do? I didn’t want to bind off and leave so much unused.

Well, I put on my big girl undies and decided to extend the pattern. I am going to work another garter section and weigh my yarn as I go. When I get down to a few grams left I think I will add a short eyelet section before binding off in the pattern recommended manner. I will save just a teeny bit of yarn for my scrap blanket but otherwise I plan to play yarn chicken as best I can. This singles yarn is too yummy to sit in my leftovers.

I’m a few garter bumps in and my yarn is shrinking. I think a good nap knitting session today and post-bedtime session tonight should see me to the rest of my yarn….fingers crossed.

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: True Blue Fingerless Gloves

I recently had the opportunity to attend a conference in Kansas City that was centered on empowering women who work in public administration. I am even luckier that I work for an organization that values sending employees to this kind of conference. Of course I needed to take knitting how else was I going to spend 10 hours in a ballroom listening to presenters. But I didn’t have any simple round and round stockinette projects on the go. And then my mind drifted to the project bag from my Terribly Simple shawl that I just finished blocking.

For Mother’s day I picked up a skein of Hansen Hand Dyes Mega Merino.  That whopper of a skein had 820 yards of yarn in it. And despite working it into my Nangou and Terribly Simple I still have a TON of yarn left. And a light bulb went off….I could make finger-less mitts to match both shawls!

I grabbed some size zero needles and threw the yarn into a bag and off to the conference I went. I cast on 72 stitches in the round and just made the rest up as I went!

I was able to complete the cast on, 2×2 ribbing and all of the stockinette arm portion as the conference. And then thanks to Daddy doing bedtime that night I was able to complete the thumb hole split. I plan for these to be some long mitts!

As you can see above I simply got to a point where I thought it was long enough and stopped knitting in the round and went to knit/purling back and forth. I am going to do this until it roughly matches the height from the bottom of my thumb joint to the web where my thump joins my hand and then I will hop back in the round!

P.S. I was smart enough to split my leftover skein into two equal parts before starting to knit. So I know I will have enough to make a matching mitt…

Happy Knitting!