Mittens!

I buckled down, worked on those mittens, and completed them. This makes me, to the best of my searching abilities, the first person to report completion (or even the attempted start) of these mittens by the web community of knitters. No, I'm not on Ravelry yet ...

• You signed up on October 29, 2007
• You are #50461 on the list.
• 8028 people are ahead of you in line.
• 3914 people are behind you in line.

but a friend checked, and there are no mittens by this name there either. The chart has some color errors, when compared to the knit mittens (and the chart puts the thumbs somewhere other than where the knitter of the model did ... and I, though planning to follow the chart, neglected to notice the difference between 'right' and 'left' and produced mittens to match the book's photo.) No one had notified the publisher of errors in the 10 year old pattern, either. So, either these mittens are being knit far, far away from the web, by knitters who don't mention errors to publishers (likely) or no one else has made them (unlikely.)

My advice for the ends is twofold:
1. When knitting the straight part of the hand, weave in (from the outside, so you can control tension optimally), using duplicate stitch, a batch of ends when you're four or five rows past them.
2. When knitting the thumb or top decreases, leave the ends on the outside (yup, outside) and weave them in when the mitten is finito. I'd have a picture, but Blogger isn't cooperating.

Denise's yarn needle got a workout on Sunday. Not only did I finish weaving in innumerable ends (and, by the way, those ends are now a golf-ball sized ball of felted yarn), but Filia finished her Twisty Turns wrap and seamed it. Silly me has no picture of her wearing the finished wrap, but I will confess it looks lovely.

My current stash project is an inch or so from completion, but I'll show you a Finished Object or two instead.

Yarn: Fleece Artist 6/2 Merino
Needle: US Size 8
Pattern: Plain tube, using the Scroll Pattern from Barbara Walker's Knitting Treasuries.
Gauge: Looks about right
Length: About yea long.
Stitches: I forget ... 130 or so?

This would never pass a pattern board. Fortunately, I kept better notes on my previous hat, so I was able to just pick up the stash yarn and knit ... no calculations or guesswork necessary. I just had to figure out my shorthand, and that only took two tries.

My other FO is the Waving Lace Socks. The pattern is somewhat from Favorite Socks, and somewhat not. I reworked the pattern to be toe-up, ignored the given heel and cuff, and used different yarn and needles. Other than that, I followed the pattern exactly. All small chart of it. But these socks need a different name. They should be the Wandering Lace Socks. Twice, they were MIA. Once to a restaurant, once to my mom's house. Twice, they tried to escape by vehicle without me, but were rescued by my son who noticed them cowering in the front seat. These socks have wandered more than any project I've ever had. At least they were unsuccessful. Many years ago, a cross-stitch project successfully ran away. As near as I can figure, it jumped out of a magazine on a rainy day while being carried across a parking lot at 4:55 AM near Ft. Meade. It's never been heard from.