I realize that I have been away from the blog for about a week and a half, but I have been busy to some purpose - with the dreaded homework and, of course, with knitting. First, good news on the dishcloth front - the new yarn has been purchased (and I couldn't resist buying an additional 2 skeins, so now Mom's going to get 4 dishcloths instead of 2...) and the incorrect yarn-overs redone and it looks much better. Behold:
I am very satisfied. When I get a life again, I'll finish the other two. (In case you missed the last post, this was done in Bernat Handicrafter Cotton, colourway Love.)
On the mitten front, things have had mixed results. I finally got around to felting all three pairs (plus the mini pair I knit when I learned to make mittens at prayer shawl group) and it turns out that my washing machine is not conducive to good felting. Either that, or I'm doing something wrong that I'm unaware of. I started with the children's mittens, because they were sort of my "test" mittens and I was least concerned about ruining them in the wash, but, three cycles later, still nothing. (More or less). I finally gave up on them and started the men's pair, with an additional pair of jeans. After two cycles of them, again, nothing. At this point I decided to try finishing them off by hand, which worked fairly well, but I wasn't entirely sure about the stitch definition (or lack thereof). Apparently they turned out well, though, even though there are a few little places where you can still see defined stitches. I tried the women's mittens starting completely by hand, but quickly found that putting them in the wash for a few cycles helps get them started and makes things go that much faster. By this point, however, it was getting late, so I decided to leave them for another time. Here are the results of that night's labour:
(Child size, in Cascade Soft Spun, Grass)
(Men's size, in Cascade Soft Spun, Navy)
A few days later, I did finish felting the women's mittens, which seemed to come out much better, although that may simply be due to the fact that I now have a better idea of what they're supposed to look like. Now they, like the men's mittens, await cuffing:
(Women's size, in Cascade Soft Spun, Aubergine)
Tonight I finished cuffing the kid's mittens. Now they're all ready for the mitten tree on Sunday:
I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get the other ones done; depends on how the homework situation goes. (Which is what I should have been doing about 3 hours ago... homework that is, not cuffing mittens.)
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