New Pretties

Hi! Remember how I blogged every single day in January and siad how it was challenging but fun and I wanted to blog more often if not every day... well turns out if I don't some sort of deadline or mental challenge kicking me in the butt every day, I can get a bit... let's say "distracted."  Partially, it's just that my knitting has been really boring.  All I've really done is finished these:

I've showed them to you several times at various in-progress stages and until I finished them I was basically putting in 10-15 rows a night and not working on anything else (damn school taking all my knitting time.)  I didn't really want to show you a picture every day of my next 10 rows.  

These are Winter Twilight Mitts by Laura Rintala which is a free download through Interweave's Knitting Daily.  They are supposed to look like trees (that have lost their leaves) in twilight, but I have had several people tell me that they can't see the trees.  The lighter color is the trees and the darker color is the night sky as seen through the trees.  I think the problem is that some people are looking for the trees in the negative space.

I had a bit of a problem because the pattern assumes that you will use a very dark color for the trees (like black) and a sunset type color for the background (like reddish-purple.)  Because of this, the cart for the pattern charts the trees in black and the background in white.  Since I was using a light color for my trees and a darker color for my background I had some trouble reading the chart and inverting the color associations in my head.  Something to keep in mind if you want to make a version with light trees.

The yarn I used is Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light.  I used this yarn for the first time on my shawl from the Westknits Shawl Club Sharktooth.  I loved it and ran out and bought some for these mittens so that I would have a chance to knit with it again.  The lighter color is Antique Lace and the darker color is Clematis.  The colors are so deep and the yarn is so soft.  And it's a single-ply and I love working with single-ply yarn.  It's jockeying neck and neck with String Theory Caper Sock for the title of "Melanie's Favorite Yarn."

As promised

I got out in the sunlight today and snapped a few pictures of Arroway looking good.  Now that the knitting is further behind me and I've worn it and felt how warm and plush it is and I've seen the colors in the sunlight I'm a lot happier with it than I was at the moment of bind off.

This is the second installment from the Stephen West Westknits Shawl Club.  The yarn this time around was from Lorna's Laces in their Shepherd Sock line.  The colors are mossgatherer and newsprint (I'll let you decide which is which.)  It's definitely not as soft as the Tosh Merino Light from the last club installment but the yarn is plumper and has a more substantial feel.

I hated every minute of making these arrows.  Stranding on the wrong side is exceedingly painful and even seven rows was almost too much.  It also gives the shawl a right side and a wrong side as you can see in the first picture.  Now that its done and blocked and the arrows don't look as messy I'm much more pleased with it.  I used all but about 7 yards of the main color, so be careful using anything with less than 420 yards per skein.  The pattern and the yarn will be available to non club members in May.  Can't wait to see what February brings!