Mittens, mittens, everywhere!

Mittens have just been jumping off my needles lately. No doubt it has something to do with finishing off the Sampler Stole, and having knittng time to work on them.

I'm itching to start another pair of mittens, but since this weekend is Shepherd's Harvest, and I'm hoping to find yarn for the Sanquhar Gloves there, it's not the best time to start something that will take a reasonable chunk of knitting time. So, I'm dinking away with swatches for classes and other stuff. My husband also thinks it would be a great idea to use up my stash before I buy any more yarn, and while I agree it's great to use up stash, I am not going to drive myself crazy trying to come up with useful ways to use up every last yard of leftovers. He thought I could use my leftovers to make him a hat. Or hats. I can't quite see him in a fingering-weight hat composed of 10 colors of self-striping sock yarn. But I can see him wearing house socks made of the same. So ... socks are heading on to the needles, for traveling knitting.

First finished after the Latvestonibu Mittens (the burgundy and white pair) were Kalev's Mittens. I used up some weaving yarn for these -- I think it was Harrisville Shetland -- and my standard 2.75 mm sock needles. The one-wick decrease used at the top is different from what I normally do, and I rather like it. It also explains why some of the mittens in Latvian Mittens don't look like they have the standard flat decrease. They don't! A one-wick decrease is like a central double decrease, but different.
After that, I snagged some more stash yarn, cast on, and knit. A pair of mittens jumped off the needles, and then a pair of half-mitts followed quickly.




















And, after all that, I still had knitting time left. I cast on with Hempathy to make a sample Shetland Lace Swatch for a class I hope to teach. It came out nicely, but I decided to pick a narrower edging and so what you see here is no longer in existence. The swatch with new edging is on the blocking board even now. I used a US 6.5 needle for the swatch (better get that written down before I forget it).

Beyond knitting ... life, as always, proceeds apace. Never more than 24 hours worth in any given day. The weather is almost conducive to gardening, and Filius and I may get some plants in the garden this evening. We have one (of 24) asparagus up, and no hostas, wintergreen, lupine, or vinca. The day lilies are popping up just where I transplanted them, and also in places that I transplanted them from. The apricots are blooming, and the cherry will soon follow suit. Neighbors are wondering if our honey locust - always the last tree in the neighborhood to wake up - has died after the butchering it received in a wind storm two years ago. We're not wondering. It'll come back. If it can survive getting mowed over twice in its first year, it'll take more than losing half its height and half its main branches to kill it.

The Puritan Reading Challenge this month is some of John Bunyan's writing. The book is good, but it does not delight me as much as Burroughs' book last month did.

School is starting to warp up. We've 13 days left to finish off this school year, and then summer vacation begins. Summer vacation, the time when we can set aside all school subjects and really dive into things!