I am a Winner!

Forgive the excitement, but I found out yesterday that my Pine Cone Mittens won a prize in one of the Ravelry Challenges I'm in.

The challenge is called 12in2013 (now 12in2014 with the new year) and it is to use stash that wasn't bought that calendar year, and the Pine Cone Mittens definitely qualify.

I was one of the lucky people who won a prize for my December entry.  I don't know what my prize is, yet, the person who was kind enough to gift it to me is getting it based on taking a look at my Ravelry Queue and profile.

I'm still excited, though.  I don't seem to have a lot of luck in winning things, so I will take all the luck I can find.

One Christmas knit left, and updates on the Sock-Along.

I finished the Pine Cone Mittens yesterday night, and got a picture this morning in the sun.

I am glad to have yet one more thing done.  The pile of WIP's is starting to come back down to a manageable level, which is nice.

Currently, I'm frantically knitting on my test-knit socks to make the December 15th deadline, but I should have most of today and tomorrow to try and finish them.

Unfortunately, I've kind of given up on the Sock-Along.  If I do manage to finish, great, but I'm honestly not expecting to at this point, sadly.  I've been neglecting my socks, and I don't think I can knit two more socks by the 15th.   It was good incentive for me to make those hand-knit pairs of socks I wanted, though!

A search for stitch-holders and cable needles

First off, thank you -so- much!  Almost 2500 views -- I never thought I would really get any views. So, thank you!


Now, onto my realization of the day:  I need more stitch holders.

I mean, I have one holding the sleeve for my Cabled Cardigan (I'm hoping to join the yoke in on that next week, which will be exciting and picture worthy), I have one holding the thumb for my Pine Cone Mittens, I have one holding the one leg of my Pyjama Shorts, and I have one holding the thumb of my Christmas Mittens.

I never, ever thought I would need more then 4 stitch holders.

"But can't you just use scrap yarn?  That's what you use for stitch markers." 

Well, yes, but I find it really hard to get stitches off of scrap yarn and onto a needle, so I really don't like using scrap yarn to hold stitches.  As stitch markers, yes, I love scrap yarn.  It means that I can't accidentally knit my marker into my work, and I don't have to worry.  It also is a nice way to use up yarn scraps.  But for holding stitches, no, it's not my first choice.  I grudgingly use it for lifelines (when I remember to put in lifelines), but that's about it.

So, my current "important" projects are now the projects that are using my stitch holders, so that I can put the thumbs on my various christmas knitting projects.

Also, I lost my little cable needle.   I have several cable needles, but one is this little purple one, and it's thinner then most cable needles I usually see.  The other ones are a bit too big for working on my Cabled Cardigan.

I would say that since I lost it at home it can't have gone too far.  With two cats, though, that cable needle could be just about anywhere. . . .

 I can pick up a new cable needle at Knit Night, it's just annoying because that one was nice and thin, perfect for cabling on socks and such. 

Slipper Love and Christmas Knitting Update

Well, it's hard to have second-slipper syndrome when the slipper is really well loved.

My roommate took the finished Fall Lake Slipper and is wearing it mis-matched with her remaining old slipper -- she loves it that much.  Apparently it's really nice and warm.

 It's really heartening to see a knitted gift so well received.  And she's not pestering me for the mate, either. . . though when I was uninspired when my knitting tonight, I asked her what I should work on, and she grinned and told me I should work on her slipper.   But I consider that funny, not pestering.  Besides, I did ask.

Beyond the slippers, the Christmas Knitting is progressing nicely.  There's not yet pictures of everything, but, I'll share the pictures I do have.

1) The Pine Cone Mittens:

These are turning out better then I'd hoped, considering that they were a complete stash-dive and I wasn't sure how the yarn would turn out.   There's more ribbing done now then the picture shows.

2) The Mini-Dalek Coffee Cozy:

This is easily my most complicated Christmas Gift, but it's a nice challenge.  I do find I can only take so much of the bobbles, though, before I need a break from this.   Also, it was a real trick getting the gauge right, since I'm scaling down the pattern.  Basically, I took the dimensions my giftee gave me (about the size of a water-glass), and then did some swatches to see what stitches-per-inch would give me that finished size.

Didn't -quite- work as easily as that, but I got it sorted out in the end.


3) The Dragon Rider Gloves:

I was surprised by this pattern, since there's no ribbing around the edge of the cuffs, just a band of ribbing on the palm.  Also, there's some typos in the pattern before the thumb gusset, which make things kind of confusing.  If it weren't for Ravelry, I probably would be a lot more frustrated with these then I am.

So for once, the Christmas Knitting is actually kind of under control.  It's keeping me busy, yes, but I don't feel overwhelmed by it.

Piles and Piles of Christmas Knitting (and stuff for me, too!)

I decided to enter a KAL featuring Christmas Knitting.

While only one entry can actually be entered, you can knit as many things as you want, provided you only post one finished object in the final thread for the knit-along.

While you can't knit until October the 15th (tomorrow), you can swatch and wind yarn before, so I spent yesterday winding a whole bunch of yarn for these projects.

1) Dragon Rider Gloves.  They're for someone who reads this blog, so I'm hoping not to spoil the surprise too badly.

2) Mittens on a String.  These are a simple free mitten pattern.  My giftee for these is one of those types, while a really sweet person, who would leave his head behind if it wasn't attached to his body.   Hence, the mitten-string.

3) Mini-Dalek Coffee Cozy.  This is going to be the most complicated of my Christmas gifts since I'm re-sizing the pattern.  It's just a matter of recalculating and shrinking stitches per inch, but it still has to be done. Gauge isn't absolutely crucial on this, which does give me a bit of wiggle room.

4) Pine Cone Mittens.  Yet another pattern from Knitting Everyday Finery, these are the only project I haven't created a Ravelry Project Page for, because the yarn for them doesn't need to be wound, it's a giant ball of worsted-weight mill ends I got ages ago that came pre-wound.   These are for the friend who was kind enough to lend me a netbook to get through the laptop being down.  He wasn't initially on my knitting list, but he really did come to my rescue since I need the computer for work.

Finally, there's a project for me, as part of the idea of this KAL is that you don't forget about yourself during the frantic rush of holiday knitting.  The idea is you get one entry for a gift, and one entry for something you knit for yourself.  So, like I mentioned before, I'm going to be making myself a fair-isle hat/cowl/mitten set.

It's going to be a busy next few months.