Progress - Knitting and Resolutions

It's Day 6 of 2008 and all my resolutions are going well. So far, so good! I haven't broken any of them yet. The "organizing" one is a bit slow...I'm not accomplishing as much as I'd like, but I am making progress!

On the knitting front, I have finished the fingerless gloves using my friend Jayme's pattern - another of her fabulous designs! I love how they turned out, and they're my first cable project! The yarn is "Simply Shetland". The only thing I wasn't pleased with was how I did the thumb increase on the second one. I managed to goof up a few stitches, but I managed to drop them and "re-knit" them. After I bound off and tucked all the ends in, I found that I had 3 other stitches that were incorrect - two knit stitches should be purls and one of the purls should be a knit. Grrrrr!!!!! The good news is that you REALLY have to be close to the thumb to see the errors, so it's really not worth undoing the bind-off and fixing it. (These are "fresh" off the needles - they haven't yet been washed - they should "bloom" a bit after washing.)

I also completed a rather unique felted bag for Nature's Yarns. It's the "Vesuvius Felted Bag" by Christie Furber. It was a very quick knit and felted quite nicely. The only thing I didn't like was how the fringe on the "handles" felted. Fringe doesn't look "pleasing" to me after it's felted. If I were to make this bag again, I would probably add the fringe AFTER felting, or put a "cover" over each set of fringe to minimize the felting.




Before felting.

I used 4 different colors of "Aussi Wool" 100% Australian wool - Seafoam for the bottom of the bag and the remaining colors for each of the 3 sides - Limeade, Amethyst, and Azalea. I had nearly half a skein of each color left over - perhaps even enough to make a second bag? I thought the bag was rather cute - it's pyramid shaped with long I-cord "handles". It's held shut by the multi-colored ring - you just need to slide it out of the way to access the interior of the bag.




After felting.

This is my latest sock project - I just love the colors! The yarn is wonderful as well - it's the Lana Grossa Meilenweit Yarn in the "Meeting" style. It's wonderful to work with and has gorgeous colors! Again, I used my favorite (and most often used) pattern, "Hellen's Favorite Socks" from Fiber Trends. I've finished the heel shaping on the first sock and am about 10 rows into the foot of the sock...wahoo! New socks on the horizon!

The red tube "attached" to my sock is a wonderful gadget - it helps protect your double pointed needles from breaking as well as helps keep your sock ON the needles as it "travels" in your knitting bag. I highly recommend the "DP Wip Tubes" to anyone who uses double points!

Oh...don't forget, tomorrow is St. Distaff's Day! It's the first day after the Feast of the Epiphany. More about this tomorrow......