Some knitting content

First off, a tiny finished object:



These are a little pair of mitties. I knit them from Alison Van Zandt's (of Simply Sock Yarn) "Simple Shorty Mitts." She sent the pattern - it's printed on a little glossy card, very nice - with the most recent order of yarn I got.

I used the second ball of the "Rocky Gorge" colored Wildfoote - the first ball going to make fingerless mitts for my mom. This pattern took maybe 3/4 of the ball - so maybe 35 grams? Somewhere less than 200 yards, at any rate.

These are a gift for my swap partner in the most recent online swap (And now I have everything assembled so later this week I should send it off). Oh, I don't think my swap partner reads here, and even if she does, I don't think she knows I'm her swap partner.

I want to make a second pair of these, maybe out of some leftover BFL* sockyarn I have, or an extra ball of one of those Paton's striping sock yarns.

(*BFL - Blue-faced Leicester. A breed of sheep)

They didn't take long at all to make, and though they're fairly simple, I think they're kind of nice.

Also, the red scarf (another giveaway project) is growing:



I feel happier about this now that it "looks like" a scarf. I joined in the second ball of Bamboo Ewe the other night - I think it will take all of two balls to be long enough. (I have three.) If I decide to bind off before attaching the third ball, I can always use it to make a hat or mittens or something for some other group that needs warm things. (Or swap/give it to someone else who needs that color). That sort of tomatoey-red is the worst possible color for me to wear, so I won't be making anything for myself of it.

This is a comforting sort of pattern to knit on - easily memorized, proceeds fairly rapidly, has a nice rhythm to it.

I was in the campus nurse's office yesterday afternoon (allergy immunotherapy) and the student serving as receptionist asked me how long it took me to make a scarf. That's always a hard question because I can't really answer it - I work on things here and there, as I have a few minutes. Or at night, when I'm listening to music or watching television or sometimes even reading. So I can't keep track of how long, really...sometimes people actually get annoyed with me for answering that way, but she understood and remarked that it was "cool" that I knit.

(I keep waiting for someone to ask me to teach them. It will come, someday, I'm sure.)

I had been thinking, "It would be interesting to try another version of this scarf, but use one of those color-shifting yarns like Kureyon for it."

And I also got to thinking: Maybe my mom needs a new scarf as a Christmas present. (Never fear - she doesn't read the blog. Doesn't even know about it, I think. (Now watch me get a "Busted, Erica!" message from her or my dad.)

And then, last Friday, when I ran down to the Target - and took a few minutes to duck into the Hobby Lobby just to, you know, look, because it is, you know, close to the Target, and if I've driven a half-hour to get to Target I might as well at least LOOK at some yarn.

And those two ideas: "fun to make this cabley scarf out of a color-shifting yarn" and "maybe I should make my mom a scarf" combined into ONE idea when I saw this:



That's "Amazing," which is (apparently) Lion Brand's entry into the Noro-esque color-shifting yarn category. The color is called "Glacier Bay" and it is all colors that (a) look good with my mom's complexion and (b) should match her winter coat (both of them, actually - the casual running-around-town jacket and the more dressy wool coat she wears to church).

So I decided to buy it and try it out. (I probably won't NEED the four balls, but I wanted to be safe. Hobby Lobby has a way of carrying something for two weeks and then never having it again. And any leftover yarn can become mitts/hats/critters).

It is pricier than many of the Lion Brand yarns, but then again, Noro is pretty darn pricey - the Lion Brand is still more reasonably priced. (And everything is going up in price, sharply it seems, I note with some annoyance. I think this will be a fall to start working through my "stash" of yarn and fabric.)

I do like to see Lion producing some more "upscale" feeling yarns...I know a lot of people diss Wool-Ease, but I can't - it's a good basic yarn and it's also the yarn that got me back interested in knitting back around 1997 or so.

(Now if they'd just start making some sockyarns again...or at least, some that the Hobby Lobby and such would carry. Though I can't complain, because HL does carry some of the Paton's sock yarns, which are pretty nice considering their price.)