It was a good week for me in the knitting realm. My baby gifts were finished and given to the recipient to much fanfare and applause. The last minute knitted stuffed Elephant was the biggest hit as apparently there was an elephant in the movie Inside Out that her kids adored. I may have to make a couple more for them or at least pass on the pattern to their mom who is a fellow knitter.
With those projects being crossed off the list (and yes I added the elephant to the list just so I could cross it off as I'm like that) I moved on to finishing more of my Christmas gifts. In the toy making yarn stash I had a lot of pink colored yarn. Now, I personally am not one for pink being of a ruddy complexion it only makes me look redder in the face, but I have one friend who is a pink color fan. I decided to try and make her some felted mittens from this pattern that I've had for some years now. As you can see they start out huge, but after 40 minutes of felting they are more like actual mittens. Have you noticed the color change? The yarn I used for knitting toys was all plant dyed and my guess is that the laundry soap I used to help felt the mittens must of had enzymes in it which changed the color. Some plant dyed colors are really stable like weld yellow and indigo blue, but others not so much. I don't care for the resulting shade as much as I did the previous color so I'm going to show them to some friends tonight at my monthly scrapbooking meeting to get their opinions. What do you think?
The mittens are also a bit more stiff and clumsy than a traditional knitted pair, but they should be killer warm in the subzero temps we get here in Minnesota. The inside cuff is knitted in an angora/wool yarn that will keep out the drafts while keeping the mittens from falling off the hand. I want to knit a pair for my mother, but I'm not sure if I should adjust the pattern and narrow down the wrists some as they bell out a bit.
In the midst of all this I was breathlessly waiting for the mail to deliver the yarn I ordered from Knit Picks. It finally arrived on Friday and I wound up a ball and started swatching right away. After I finish my mom's mittens I believe I will cast on and get chugging away on this sweater. Who knows maybe I can finish it just in time to use it when Fall hits.
Check out the other Year of Projects participants here. Have a great week everyone!
