Monday, February 18, 2008

FO Sighting

With all the chaos that seems to surround me at the moment, I still managed to finish up a project or two and as usual start another.

First up is another chemo cap for my son, Shedir:

Shedir is a very nice pattern and was a pleasure to knit in Rowan Calmer. The cotton content of Calmer is soft and absorbent. I would highly recommend this yarn for chemo caps over the synthetics which are often suggested, which I used for the first ones and of which I was not overly enamored. Used US 3s for the ribbing and US4s for the body.

Now tell me this photo isn't hilarious. That skinny skinny little glove that stretches out so much for my hand. OK, OK, so I knit really tightly on sock needles.

And then just in time for the last few days of cooler weather, I finished up my first pair of Serpentine Mitts by Miriam Felton. These were knit in Wollmeise on 2.25mms. The color is Kurbis. I mirrored the cabling and also mirrored the ribbing at the thumb by resituating my stitches to start with P2 for the back of the hand on the left glove. I added 1/2" of ribbing to the cuff and at least another 1/2" to the length of the hand. I definitely still find them too short. I decided to use the Large cast on even though my hand measured for the Small and I'm glad I did. Next time around, I will center the cables better over the back of the hand (should be a problem only for size Large) and lengthen the hand portion of the pattern. And I do like these so much that I foresee more in my future.

Now there are all sorts of UFOs around here that require concentration and calculations, so I decided I needed something completely mindless to knit, like ribs round and round in circles...i.e. socks, but simple socks, very simple socks. Never one to leave well enough alone, I ended up adding a cable and a twist here and there and voilĂ :

Ann Budd's Cable and Clocks Socks in Wollmeise, color Johannesbeere and Brennesel. See that lovely double spiraling the yarn is doing? Well, just about at that point, I went down a needle size and the whole thing derailed. Will save those photos for the next post. They do sail along as compared to all the cabled things I've been working on lately.

CairoKate is raffling off some gorgeous sock yarns to encourage donations to the Leukemia Lymphoma Society in her brother's name. I encourage you to wander over and support the cause. Since my family is going through the same thing as Kate's, I would suggest you check out the information on the Marrow Transplant website and consider being a marrow donor. It no longer requires actual marrow, but a blood draw, similar to giving platelets. You can save a life.

7 comments:

Micki said...

Love those Serpentines! Someday I need to make Shedir too.

Edie said...

love the hat and the serpentines! I can't wait to see your sock finished. I do love that spiraling!

Anonymous said...

The marrow-link didn't work for me.

I like the top shaping on your Shedir!

bookgrump said...

Beautiful stuff! The Shedir is stunning. Love the pooling on the Wollmeise socks. The Serpentines are so nice! I want to steal them!

Jo at Celtic Memory Yarns said...

And I thought I was bad enough, pulling and tweaking at perfectly easy patterns! You just can't leave well alone, can you? A cable here, a twist there, a double sulka overhead backflip... what would you do in a strict House of Knitting Correction where you had to do garter stitch all day every day on grey hemp, hey? But wow, I share your passion for Wollmeise. Where does she live (exactly) do you happen to know?...

Anonymous said...

I saw your blog name on Clementine's shoes and popped over to see another frog-blog. I was sorry to read about your son. Another weird coincidence is that last year I shaved my head to raise money for research into leukaemia. My hair is still short, and that hat looks very tempting to me, especially as winter will be here all too soon. Lovely knitting projects... excellent blog.

tapmouse said...

WOW! All the knitting is beautiful, as usual! I really love the cabled socks!

I see that I need to catch up a bit on what's up with you since it seems I've probably missed alot!