It's Mitten Weather!

Well, the temperatures have plummeted here in Alabama. And while it might be colder elsewhere - we take advantage of the low temps to pull out the winter clothes! (It might be in the 70's next week!)

As a knitter, I also take advantage of the cooler weather to pull out some worsted weight wool and begin my Christmas mitten knitting.  And to get you started on my personal addiction, I'm giving away my Just Thumbkin pattern throughout the month of November.  You can find it here. Enjoy!

Easy Peasy Sleevesy!

While knitting yet another Featherweight Cardigan, I realized that I usually stall when I reach the sleeves.  Shouldn't I love to knit sleeves in the round?  No seaming!  No purling!  

As I started to knit the first sleeve of this latest sweater, it hit me.  I hate pushing the stitches onto the needle while knitting in the round using the magic loop method.

I switched to the magic loop method for sleeves years ago after trying many other methods.  I started out with double point needles - I never had the right size set of needles!  Then I tried small circulars - The length of the needles are so short my hands ache after a few rounds.  Magic loop was the way to go.  I enjoy knitting socks this way and isn't a sleeve just a really long sock cuff?

Yes and no.  When I knit socks, I am usually working with fingering weight yarn and US size 1 (2.25mm) needles.  On these needles the cable and the needle itself are essentially the same diameter.  Sweaters, however, are rarely knit on needles that small.  I normally use a US 5 or 6.  The difference in diameters between the cable and needle is much different - so at the end of every half-round I find myself pushing my stitches up onto the larger needle.

Then it hit me!  Wouldn't it be much easier to slide the stitches onto a US 3 or 4 needle? 

Enter my HiyaHiya interchangeable needles!  With interchangeables it's possible to have two different size needles on the same cable...

Now when I knit a sleeve, I use the proper needle to knit onto (right hand needle) and use a needle one or to sizes smaller to knit off of (left hand needle).  My knitting is still to gauge, but I no longer have to push the stitches up over the join.  

One word of caution!  Remember that the stitches will slip off the end of the needle as easily as they slip over the join!

Anyone in the market for some 9-inch circulars?

Messing with Muffins

It's finals time - so I decided to make a breakfast muffin to mail to my boys at school.  I wanted something low in sugar but still tasty.  Here's what I came up with. Hope you enjoy it!

Dabbling on the edge of...

insanity perhaps?


Yesterday I realized that if I wanted my two sons at college to receive a "little something from home" to get them through mid-terms I had to get it in the mail!


I had been collecting items to send for the past few days but needed a theme to tie it all together. How do you make mid-term exams fun and exciting?  

Well, you don't... but you can celebrate the fact that you've made it half-way through the semester!


So I set to work turning wholes into halves.  Yes, I literally cut most of the items going into the box in half.




Half a package of pens and pencils, half a doodle pad, half a pack of sticky notes (that was the hardest to accomplish!)...

You get the idea!

But not everything can be divided!

Insane?  No doubt! But loving nonetheless!

Flattered!

I am so flattered that Julie chose to feature my Heather Hoodie Vest in the Modification Monday's section of her blog.

Know Your Pot

Having knitting friends is a wonderful thing... well most of the time that is. Here we are only weeks before Christmas and I still have quite a few gifts to finish but what am I doing? Knitting myself (well actually my teapot) a cozy. Why? Because my dear friends started their cozies and began sharing pictures of their wonderful work.

So, of course, I jumped over the cliff with them and started knitting the Autumn Tea Cozy pattern.

Having read that this was a fun and simple project I dove right in and cast on without making a gauge swatch (warning bells begin ringing). "No gauge swatch?" you ask. That's right after all it is just a one skein tea cozy. Well, after finishing the picot hem and knitting several additional rounds I discovered that I had knit a gauge swatch - a very large gauge swatch. 

This is when I decided that in order to knit a tea cozy you must get to know your teapot. Become very familiar with him. Know his diameter, where his spout and handle are located, how tall he is and the slope of his lid.








So instead of working on the pile of Christmas UFOs, I spent an afternoon knitting and frogging, re-knitting and tinking and knitting some more. Each time trying my odd little teapot's new formfitting sweater on his cold porcelain shape.

Until at last...

...the perfect fit!

Where's my Sleeve?

Having an ice dispenser in the door of your freezer is a wonderful convenience. That is until it turns into a mass of immoveable ice!

It is such a simple device. You press a button, the door opens and a motor sends some ice down the chute into your glass instantly chilling your favorite beverage. But what if, what if one rouge piece of ice refuses to leave the chute. It's not ready to melt and clings to the side of the chute lodging that simple little door open. No big deal, right? The ice will melt, the door will close. Right?

Wrong!

All, of the nice warm air from your house (remember the refrigerator is in the kitchen) rises up that ice chute and melts a few more cubes before the escapee melts and the door closes and the freezer refreezes the melted ice. Now, what seemed like such a small problem has turned into quite an ordeal, requiring hours of work to empty the freezer and thaw the ice dispenser (great use for a hair dryer).

I estimate it took a good sweater sleeve worth of knitting time to undo this mess!