WIPW v.26 - and a Wee Giveaway!

Brrrrrr.  It's cold.  Like really. really cold.  As in, the last time the thermometer crawled past 0 (that's "zero", folks) was some time on Monday afternoon.  This California girl is not accustomed to sub-zero temps, and not intending to become accustomed, thankyouverymuch.

All that to say I finished the Chevalier mittens last weekend!  So you don't get to see them until Friday.  And then we can all play "Spot The Boo Boo" because I didn't see it until I was binding off and my hands were too cold to frog back and fix it.  It's making me twitch a little bit, but I'm trying to live with it.  They are keeping my hands pretty warm in the midst of all this weather, so I guess I can't complain too much.

I made some good progress on the Cable Lace Vest this week, but Houston... We have a problem.

I reached the end of the bust increases and am ready to divide for the armholes now.  So I took a good hard look at the pattern.  I'm supposed to continue on until the length is 20".  Umm.  Right.  I'd say it's right around 24" right now.  Le sigh. 

What I really need to do is sit down and go over the numbers, check the gauge, make sure I'm measuring from the right place, and make a concrete plan for next steps.  What I did instead was cast on for the Burberry Inspired Cowl that's been sitting on my Ravelry favorites list for ages.  Did I mention it's cold here?

I have 2 skeins of grey alpaca yarn that I bought at the National Western Stock Show a couple of weekends ago that are SO soft.  And I had the right size needles (even if they are my mom's 20 year old plastic needles that have no point whatsoever at the tips).  And as I think I might've mentioned, it's COLD.  I think that totally justifies it.

So last night, I learned how to do a provisional cast on using this video.  Apparently, there are eleventy billion ways to do a provisional cast on, but this one seemed straightforward and worked even though I had to switch it around and do it left-handed.  Bonus.  So at lunch today, I cast on and worked the first handful of rows.  It seems like it'll take about as long to knit the cowl as it will to graft the stitches together when I'm finished.  And the fact that it's an incredibly simple pattern that I can knit while multi-tasking is attractive, too.  In short, I'm loving it.

And I must say, the color of the leftover mitten yarn that I used for the cast-on looks lovely with the grey cowl yarn.  Hmm....  Maybe a pair of striped fingerless mitts with leftovers?  I'll have to give that some thought.

Oh! And I almost forgot:  Yesterday, I stumbled across a giveaway sponsored by the lovely and talented Eskimimi from Eskimimi knits, the Blog Hub group on Ravelry.  She's giving away some gorgeous handspun yarn.  She's also having a bit of a rough go at the moment and is having a huge sale on all of her patterns.  I bought the whole lot for $10, which is a screaming deal.  And,

*****THIS IS THE FREE GIVEAWAY PART (in case you want to skip to the chase)*****

...Since I already purchased the Snowbaby Hat Pattern to knit for Mr. Right's mom for Christmas, I now have two of them.  So I'm giving one away.  Leave a comment on this post, and go visit Eskimimi's blog to see if there's anything that suits your fancy (no purchase required) between now and midnight Colorado time next Tuesday.  I'll randomly draw a winner who'll receive my extra Snowbaby Hat Pattern.  Easy peasy.  I'm happy to send the PDF anywhere, and if you'd rather have a hard copy, I'll even print it out and mail it off - also anywhere.

Once you've left your comment, head over and check out all of the other WIPW folks this week. There are a ton of cool projects to see!

Disclaimer:  This giveaway is sponsored by no one but me.  I didn't even ask Eskimimi's permission, though I might should've.  Hope she doesn't mind...