more on the thrummed mitts

One pair is done: And I've made some changes to the other: The grey and red pair will be put away for Christmas now.

The changes I made to the blue? After some careful measuring and weighing, I determined that I would not have enough of the grey alpaca for the pair. Crap. So I dug out my wheel of navy pencil roving, and have alternated rows of super soft grey alpaca and not so soft but really warm navy wool roving. The bonus? I like this better. The navy adds a depth of colour. Even my husband noticed and liked it better. (A comment made without even any prompting! He's getting so much better at this...) He's sure my nephew D will love these. I hope so. Or at least, I hope he likes them enough, or at least, he likes me enough not to tell me if he hates them...

You can see here how generous I make the thrums. I feel that the inside of the mitten should be completely packed with fibre. You shove your hand in, and the fibre forms around it, making a custom sized pocket, just for you. Luxurious. It's the only way to go.

The blue mitts are so much easier to knit - the Heilo yarn is closer to a DK weight, while the Briggs and Little grey was a worsted. On 4mm needles, the grey made a firmer fabric, but it was harder on my hands. This Heilo is much easier. I can see these mitts taking less time, even though they are larger.

Next up - some Peruvian hand painted stuff with plain thrums, and some beautiful cream coloured wool with hand painted thrums. Or maybe I'll keep the cream colour and make the thrums in the stripe colours of a classic Hudson's Bay Point Blanket.

Can't get any more Canadian than that...

random answers

Sometimes I get questions in the comments, and I've never really been sure how to answer them, so I thought I'd collect them and answer them here. I'm kind of hoping that those that ask are still coming back to read...

Regarding the thrummed mittens, Tracy asked where I got the roving. The red roving is actually White Buffalo Mills Unspun. It's a wheel of pencil-like roving, and I have tons of it. Years ago, I bought wheels in black, red, navy, rust, green and gold. I have no idea why, or where (possibly from Briggs and Little), and I have used it for thrums every since. Okay, I just did a little checking - I definitely bought it from Briggs and Little - here's the link. It's great for thrums since it's already a perfect size - you just have to rip off the lengths you need. (Most patterns tell you 3 inch lengths, I go for at least 4 inches. For thrums, more is more.) I've also got some braids of Fleece Artist Roving in hand-dyed colours, and these look great with solid coloured yarns. I have used the Fleece Artist kit that she mentions, although Tracy, how the hell did you get two pairs out of 1 kit?? I made one pair and I had to supplement the roving they supplied, as there was no way there was enough roving for even the one pair! as I said, the key with thrums is "More is More" - skimping on them is defeating the purpose. You need enough roving inside to make it worthwhile, otherwise, I wouldn't bother. So lesson learned, the Fleece Artist kits, while absolutely lovely, are fine for 1 pair of small child's mittens, but be warned if making some for adults - it won't be nearly enough. The grey alpaca (I also have a bag of white alpaca) was bought at the Kitchener Knitters Fair, about 2 or 3 years ago. There are plenty of sources for roving out there.

Deirdre asked about the Halloween pumpkins - how did I get the white teeth? That's easy - just carve off the orange skin to reveal the white flesh of the pumpkin underneath. I use my old litho carving tools - they look like small woodworking awls and shapers. It's way easier than it looks to do.

Brenda asked if I enjoy knitting thrummed mitts. I do, although I have to admit mitten knitting is not among my favourite things. I go in jags with it. Right now I'm willing to knit mittens, a month from now, I will hate them, I'm sure. As far as thrummed vs. regular mitts - I like something to keep my brain occupied. So it's either thrums, or colourwork or SOMETHING beyond straight stockinette. (Yet, I rarely pattern my socks, preferring to keep them straight stockinette. I know, my brain is wired a little funny...)

Deirdre again - asking about the yarn and roving. Okay the roving I explained, but the grey wool is also a Briggs and Little wool - for some reason I have a ridiculous quantity of this stuff. I must have bought it during one of my "Buy Canadian" phases. Which is not a bad thing.

Marlyce asked about the charity our Guild supports. We support many, including Yellow Brick House in York Region, a woman's shelter, Southlake Regional Health Centre, and many others that or "charity co-ordinator Jen finds. I believe there are some overseas charities that are helped as well.

Regarding the decluttering, we donate toys and stuff to Goodwill, clothes go there as well, or I give them to my Mom for her church. Some of the toys go to my friend who runs a daycare. Basically, other than things that are trashed, we are not just throwing things away - they are getting re-used by someone. This weekend, another 4 boxes of toys went to a daycare (2 more are in my trunk to drop off this week), and bags of stuff to trash were put out. The basement is getting there - a good vacuuming, and we're good to go. Now I have to convince husband and son that the Playstation and Wii should move down there as well...
Next up - closets and outgrown clothes. I swear, my 10 year old kid grows overnight! Thankfully, he likes his t-shirts baggy...

yum, yum,yum...

New sock yarn! Tove at Needles and Knits got some new sock yarn in, and she was making some socks with it. It looks and feels like Noro, but there are 420m in a ball! Seriously, she was on the second of a pair of adult socks, and the ball was still freakin' huge! We're debating whether you can get two full pairs of adult socks, or if it will be a pair of adult and a kid's pair. Since it didn't seem fair to let her do all the work on this theory, I had to buys some to try it out:

It's called Fame Trend, by Marks and Katten. It's 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon, so it should hold up well. It's like Noro in that it seems to be a single, rather than a plied yarn, so that may negate the nylon content in regards to how well it holds up, but I will try it out to see. The top one is a black, cream and grey mix, and like Noro, it has long colour shifts. The bottom left if actually a green/grey/brown mix, although the green is not showing well here - in reality it's a lovely mossy shade of green. Then there's a rainbow colourway, bought because it looks like fun. The grey and black will probably be for my FIL, the green is for me or possibly the husband, and the rainbow hasn't been decided yet (probably me - I know it will be appreciated that way...) I'll use the extras for my son - he rocks the handknit socks, but he keeps growing out of them.

This yarn would be great for knee socks, as well. (I'm not a fan of knee socks myself, but that has me thinking about my nieces, and the rainbow colourway...)

And yes, I have already started the black grey and cream. Yes, I have multitudes of other projects I could and should be working on. But this is research! Right?

Attention! Hell has officially frozen over! Twice!

I have a 15 year old nephew. I love him to death, although it doesn't show. I don't shower him with handknits (at least, not since he turned 8 or so). He was one of the first of the sibling offspring, so he got all the great baby sweaters - including a spectacular (If I may say so) bright red cabled jacket that looked great on him (and three other kids after him - I always took it back for washing, to ensure the lifespan).

But for the last few years, he has been pretty specific about the hand mades. "Please don't." So I didn't. I did hem his school uniform pants, but that was more for him Mom - he was quite happy to leave them long and dragging..., but I never sewed or knitted anything for him.

This summer, after seeing my kid in his hand made pajama pants at the cottage, he discreetly mentioned that some of those would be cool. In plaid. I filed that away, and will be making some of those for Christmas. (all the kids will be getting pj pants - the girls are getting embroidered satins and some tie dyed cottons, the boys are getting patterns to match their interests, and plaids). At that point, I debated buying some ice skates for Lucifer.

But the really "stop me in my tracks, completely gob-smacked" moment came just last week. I was on the phone with his mom, and heard him in the background. His mom came back on the phone and said "D would like a pair of handknit mittens if it's not a problem."

????

Not a problem? Holy crap, I've been waiting for this moment! I told her to put him on, and tried to keep it low key, although I was jumping for joy inside.

"So Dude, what colour? Blue? okay, I can do blue. I'll send some examples over of blues I have, and you can pick. Cool. Yeah, no problem, I'm sure I can find some time..."

So I grabbed blues - I had some Heilo Norwegian yarn, plain blue. I had some hand-dyed, some Socks that Rock Silke (my personal choice), some alpaca. I gave him about 5 to choose from, and at the last minute, I threw in the grey and red thrummed mitt, as well as a plain knit mitt for him to choose from. I also tossed in the bag of delicious grey alpaca roving for thrums. I put it all in a bag, and my husband took it over there on Monday, during his weekly poker game. (Don't ask - it's been going on since high school).

I got a phone call that night. "D like the plain blue (Heilo),but wants to know about the fluffy ones." I got him on the phone, and he said he really liked the fluffy ones, since they were really warm. I told him to stick his hand in the bag of grey roving, and tell me if that feels as nice as the grey and red one. I hear a muffled "wow, that's sick!" and he gets back on the phone and asks if he can get the grey fluff inside the blue mitten. "The red is nice, but the grey is sick!"

Sick it is. He's getting blue mittens with grey alpaca thrums. He'll be happy, and I'm thrilled. At least I am until all the others decide they want them. Or his friends. My track record with mittens is not good. I'm making as many as I can now before the feeling wears off and I can't stand the sight of another mitten. It will happen...

Wonder if Lucifer needs a toque?

Halloween 2009

We lucked out this year - Halloween falling on a Saturday gave us a chance to decorate the house beyond just the pumpkins.

We had fun with this - Husband and son did most of the outside, while I was busy carving out 3 (actually 4) pumpkins. Husband had requested a Frankenstein pumpkin, while son wanted the toothy guy. I opted for my favourite pumpkin in jail again. I usually don't repeat carvings, but I love this concept.

Rachel H - did you remember to steal this idea?

The boy's costume this year was "Death". When we were looking at patterns, he chose this, and I said "oh, you want to be the Grim Reaper". "Yeah, Mom, but you can just call me Death". Okay, so the concept of cute costumes is long gone... Who knew Death wore Nikes...

It was worth it when I could hear the kids yelling to their friends "You have got to see this house - it's wicked!" And for kids to mention they thought the decorations were cool and that they liked the pumpkins? That was sweet.

new stuff

Since I finished one project (the Montego Bay Scarf), I thought I would start a new one. (I know, I know, I just showed you the multitudes of things I have on the go. Remember the title of that post? I'm fickle. and obviously possessing of a short attention span...)
But... there are two good reasons for the project I chose to start. One - it will be a Christmas gift for a friend. A University of Ottawa-attending friend. For those that know Ottawa in winter - it's cold, so she NEEDS these. Second, I'm doing a mini workshop at Tuesday's Guild meeting on this technique, so I needed to practice on and have to show. Right. Both excellent reasons for digging into my roving stash for some thrummed mitts. (The irony that I'm probably not going to stop at one pair of these is not lost on me. Yes, all other projects are being left behind...)
This grey and red pair (colours of the University of Ottawa) are for the daughter of my son's sitter, and will be very welcome. Then there's probably a black and gold pair for son's teacher (school colours - those winter days of playground duty can get a little chilly...) Then I found the grey alpaca roving, and well, yeah, I think I need a pair of these as well. I mean, I can't really give someone a gift I haven't road tested myself? Can I?

Uncle!

I finally cast off the never-ending Montego Bay Scarf. I could have kept going, but to be honest, it's a scarf, not a freaking escape ladder, and I think once it got to a certain length, anything more would be superfluous. Yes, I ended up with a small amount of silk/merino left over. Not enough for much of anything. And you know what? It's easy to do this: Quite liberating, I might add.

Seriously - this thing blocked out to over 9 feet long and 9 inches wide. Enough, already...
And when I unpinned it, it stayed over 9 feet long and 9 inches wide. The lace opened up beautifully. I probably didn't need to block it so severely - I could have reduced it by a couple of feet, but the wool was so fine, I thought a really open, lacy effect would be nice. And it is.

It's been packed away for Christmas - not yet sure who the recipient will be yet. Depends on who doesn't piss me off between now and then...

I've been tossing a lot of stuff around the house lately. Getting rid of the excess. Whether it be toys, clothes or other such detritus we seem to have collected over the years, we are slowly weeding it out. For a family of three, we have a lot of stuff. An embarrassingly large amount of stuff. We've thrown around the idea of a garage sale, but neither one of us is at all interested in doing it, so Goodwill and garbage it is. Toys especially. Having worked in the toy and craft industry for a large part of my career, I have accumulated lots of them. Every week, our goal is a minimum of one garbage bag and one donation bag out of the basement. So far so good. Plus, we're attacking the clothes - every thing the kid has outgrown gets given away or tossed, depending on condition. Adult stuff - same. I've got clothes that I haven't worn in a long time. Some was being held onto for sentimental reasons, but really, will I think of my dad less if his blue and white striped shirt is no longer hanging in my closet? I don't think so. Will I suddenly cease to remember that great rafting trip we took in the Ozarks without the t-shirt from Missouri? Nope. Memories are ingrained. Stuff is not. So it's going. All of it. Eventually.