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...

Work In Progress Wednesday v.21

Here we are, at the very last Wednesday of 2010 -- the year knitting went from something I did here and there to Knitting -- A Way of Life.  Seriously.  I'm never not knitting *something* these days.

I finished the Snowbaby Hat just in time for Christmas (I couldn't wrap it til Christmas morning because it took forever to dry after blocking), and Mr. Right's mom loved it.  It earned me the biggest hug I've ever gotten from her and a kiss on the cheek.  And then she checked my finishing work, proclaimed that I had done a beautiful job and hugged me again.  I couldn't have asked for a better reaction.  Phew!

I'm determined to finish Eliza this week, now that my finger is mostly healed, so check back on Friday for the final unveiling.  I promise!  For now, she still looks like this:

I've also unearthed that cable lace vest that got buried during the holidays.  I'm resolving to pick it up again, but just for a little refresher, here's what it looked like when I stuffed into my knitting back about 6 weeks ago...

It's pretty, and I'm excited to wear it.  But lately, I've become inexplicably obsessed with making mittens.  It's supposed to snow like crazy here tomorrow, and what sort of self-respecting knitter goes into an impending blizzard with only one pair of mittens???  Not this one, that's for sure.

And so.  Instead of knitting an elephant ear or the top of a vest, I cast on for a new pair of MITTENS!  I love mittens. I love the coziness, I love the super cool patterns that are available, I even love the word.  Mittens. Mittens. Mittens!  Phew. Glad I got that out of my system.  Anyway, after realizing that I had no Progress to report for WIPW, I got up early this morning and cast on for a pair of Chevalier Mittens.  Then I spent the whole morning working on them (I love vacation).  Here's what we have so far, after having tinked a few rows due to the dreaded KBMC syndrome -- that's Knitting Before Morning Caffeine...

That's the back of the hand side, with the beginnings of the cabling.  Here's what the palm side looks like...

I'm loving the yarn and the pattern so far, though this is the first thing that I've knit entirely from a chart and it's a little scary (see tinking, above).

Hope everyone is having a great week.  For more crafty loveliness, head over to Tami's blog and check out everyone else's progress this week. 

FO Ho Ho Friday

Happy Almost Christmas, everybody!

I can't believe it's almost here, though I should since I've been wrapping presents for the last eleventy billion hours or so.  I have one left to wrap...

It's finished!  But it's taking forever to dry after being blocked.  I have the box ready, the paper set out, it just needs another hour or two locked up in the guest bathroom with the heat vent open.... I hope.  Otherwise I'll be giving a slightly soggy hat tomorrow.

I'm super happy with the way it turned out, but I did have some trouble with laddering on the decreases.  I'm not sure why, as I've never had a problem before, but I just stitched it up a bit when I was weaving the ends in and it seems like everything's A-Ok.  I definitely see myself knitting another of these in the future.  I want one to keep!  It's fun and fairly fast, and it will give me a chance to learn how to hold one color in each hand.

The only other FO I have to share this week is this:

It's Pioneer Woman's Blackberry Cheesecake.  I've never made a cheesecake before, and this one is for Christmas dessert.  It browned way faster than expected in the oven, and so I turned the heat down and pulled it out a bit early.  Then when it cooled, it sank.  A bunch.  Is that normal?  I dumped the blackberry topping onto it, but I'm worried it's not cooked all the way through.  How do you know with a cheesecake? I guess we'll find out.  Come back next week for details of the spectacular dessert or epic failure.  I'll let you know which way it goes.

Until then, a very Merry Christmas to all of you and yours!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.20

**Editor's note -- I wrote this lovely post, then went to upload the pictures and realized that I left my camera at my office.  45 minutes away.  So instead of decently lit shots, you get crummy phone photos.  Sorry!  Now you'll appreciate this week's FO Friday photos even more, right?  ;)

*  *  *  *  *

Happy Wednesday before Christmas, you guys!  There's not much to report in the way of knitting progress around here, sadly, but I haven't missed a WIPW yet, so why start now?

The cut on my finger was worse than I thought, and a full week later, I still can't quite manage to make any progress on Eliza.  The cut runs over the back of my index finger, right where the yarn runs when I knit.  Not so convenient, really.  So I'm still staring at a one-eared elephant over here, but who knows... maybe there's a Christmas knitting miracle in store.  We'll see.

Instead of elephant-ing, I've been working like crazy on that stranded colorwork hat for Mr. Right's mom for Christmas.  Happily, that doesn't seem to bother my finger much.

I'm just about halfway done with the crown decreases now, which are zooming right along.  The 15 rounds of stranded colorwork took me about 3x as long as the rest of the hat total, but I did alright for a first-timer, I think, just s  l  o  w going.  I'm planning to finish it up tonight so I can get it blocked tomorrow.  Nothing like cutting it close!

That's all for me this week, so I'll leave you with the obligatory Christmas tree picture...

... and encourage everyone to head over to Tami's blog to check out all the fancy dancy WIPW progress that's going on this week.

Cheers!

Work In Progress Wednesday v.19

I was SO hoping that I'd be able to write this post today and be all, "No elephant pics for you guys!  You'll have to wait til FO Friday for that -- cuz she's DONE!"  But I cannot be all like that.  Because she is still not done.  She would have been done, if not for this...

That's what's left of my right index finger after I tried to amputate the top half while slicing a loaf of french bread last night for Mr. Right's birthday party #2.  Bread knives are sharp (Ow.).  They are also serrated (Ow.), and sometimes slippery (Seriously. Ow.).  Out of respect for the gaping wound on my finger, I decided to take a day or two off from wrestling worsted weight yarn on size 3 dpns.  So here's our Miss Eliza, one ear and two eyes shy of her full pachyderm glory...

Still cute!  And I kitchenered that ear all by myself, with a bit of help from this youtube video.  If ever you need assistance with any sort of knitterly technique (please tell me I'm not the only one?), I highly recommend any videos by the knitwitch.  She's awesome at super clear videos and explanations.

Anyway, I'm still semi-hoping she'll be done in time for FO Friday, but we'll see.

Since I couldn't work on the elephant, and because I'm insane, I decided to start a hat for Mr. Right's mom for Christmas.  Brilliant!  Also?  Stranded colorwork.  Have I ever done stranded colorwork before?  Why no.  I have not.  I'm sure it'll be fine.  I mean I started at lunch, cast on twice (first long-tail wasn't long enough), could have sworn that I joined to work in the round (I didn't), and have managed one and a half rounds of ribbing so far.

But I have this stunning pattern by the lovely and talented Eskimimi, and this gorgeous yarn (ravelry link - sorry), and buckets of irrational optimism.  What could go wrong?*

Speaking of irrational optimism, I'm sure all of the other WIPW-ers are long done knitting their Christmas gifts and are busily basking in the warm glow of a stress-free holiday.  The only way to find out for sure is to head over to Tami's blog and see for yourself.


*Don't answer that.  Please?