Kindle Death (Kindle Sleeve Pattern)

My Kindle needed an awesome sleeve, so after searching and not finding just the right thing... I wrote my own pattern.

Queue this pattern on Ravelry!

Kindle Death

Rowr Mitts - Test Knitting - New Pattern Review

Knitting designer, Nakia Casey, had asked me to test knit her recent pattern, "Rowr Mitts" (Ravelry download here).  It's a colorwork design, using two colors of your choice, and a quite easy-to-knit technique called mosaic or slip-stitch. I hadn't tried this method before, so I was excited to see how it went, in comparison to fair isle. It's a very cool method, and if you haven't tried colorwork before, or don't like trying to figure out how to hold both yarns at the same time, then give this pattern a try.

My daughter loves anything animal print, so she instantly took to her little leopard mitts!

I spent about one day of knitting for each mitt, and made the child sized pair for my daughter. I used my Twisted Sock yarn for these, but would also suggest using my Classic Sock yarn as it's 100% merino and fluffy fibers love to "hug" each other while doing colorwork. You will end up knitting one row of the chart with only one color at a time, and slipping the opposite colored stitches. Then you repeat that same row once more, then switch to your other color, knit those stitches, while slipping the opposite colored stitches and repeating the same row again, one time. Then move to the next row of the chart, and so on. This method makes it fast and really simple to manage.

The charts themselves are quite clear and easy to follow. The pattern itself is well-written so there's no guess-work. Overall, I really loved the pattern itself, and am loving the end result! This is the perfect kind of knit if you want some instant weekend gratification, or have a gift you'd like to make, pronto. They're pretty versatile as well, because the adult pair uses 3 repeats of the chart for the wrist until you get to the thumb gusset, but you can easily knit two or even one repeat depending on how long you want them to be on your arm/wrist. I used my kettle dyed yarn, and it looks great! You can also try out a gradient yarn as the background, or the contrasting color to change the ending effect.

It's a great project for giving colorwork a go, for a fast knit, and it definitely makes a little statement of it's own! It also uses a very small amount of fingering yarn... I believe I used less than 150 yds for the kids mitts with 2 chart repeats for the wrist/arm. I know I could not have used that much, since I used the remainder from that 400yd skein to make my husbands "We call them Pirates" fair isle hat.

I think one of the reasons these mitts knit up so quickly is because the chart and pattern changes enough to be interesting, and has a really great rhythm to it so that you don't want to put it down. It's more fun to just keep knitting it until it's done.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows 3 month Yarn Club - Now Open

Come and join in the HP knitting fun! Signups are open for the Harry Potter Yarn Club. This is going to be so much fun to work on... I can hardly wait to get started!

There are two clubs, a kettle dyed version, which will be yarns dyed in a dyepot with one main color that isn't mixed evenly. This results in the dye having tonal variations in it. The other option is variegated colors, which will be hand painted by me, and each colorway typically will have 3-6 colors per skein.

All of the colorways represent characters (or things!) in the last book. The movie is going to be released into US theatres in November and I can hardly wait to knit up some things with Harry Potter yarn!

Clubs go for 3 months, starting in October and continuing through December. There are two payment options, to pay in full, or to pay in two installments. Club price is $70 with free shipping to the US (shipping to Canada & Europe for a fee) or pay $35 now and $38 in October.

So far, the list of characters and things that have been suggested by members of the club, from my Facebook page, and from the club Ravelry group are:
Snape
Molly Weasley
Fred & George
Ginny
Draco
Lucius
Dumbledore
Voldemort
Shacklebolt
Grawp
Fenrir Greyback
Harry/Ron/Hermione
Horcruxes 

Anything else that should be on the list? I will be choosing 3 of these for the colorways, and likely there will be different choices for each club since not all choices can be translated into a solid color for the kettle dyed club.

Feel free to join the Ravelry group even if you're not going to join the club, but love Harry Potter and want to keep an eye on things. Also, I'm updating my Facebook page with all of the news for the clubs as well.

Purchase a slot for the HP club through my Etsy shop.

Snow days

It's been two days at home with the kids because of the snow. They are eager to have another snow day tomorrow - but so far, no word of it. The snow isn't supposed to start again until tomorrow morning, so there's no telling. I have my last day to work at M's preschool for our coop commitment. Jim said he'd work there instead of me since I've done 16 days there so far. It took a little bit of arm-twisting as I think he feels a bit out of his element.

Two moms from the school volunteered to work the last two days I have scheduled there in February. Jim was going to work them on his days off but they said they wanted to do it to give Jim and I some more time together as a family instead of him being at the school on his days off. How awesome is that?! There *are* nice people left in this world after all.

No ballet for Miss M today either. No one told us though of course, until after we drove out there and Damien's teacher was there to tell us that classes are canceled. Well, I dropped by my favorite bakery Baker & Spice next door and picked up some eggnog rum cakelet and a baguette to go with the soup I made today. Sadly, I only got one loaf, and it's gone already.

My Baudelaire socks are coming along nicely again - I hadn't worked on them since last Friday I think. My knitting time has been slim with all the kids home since Friday. I wonder if there will be any more school this week or we'll have three whole weeks of Winter Break?

Baudelaires

I have had so many gauge troubles with these socks. I just couldn't get the right gauge, just not quite. Well, short of getting some 0 dpn's, as I only have 1's and 2's, and 0 in circular, but one 16" only. I think I've got it now.

I really love the pattern though, and the yarn. I love the Jitterbug! And the garnets of varying shades are enough to make me want to roll all over my yarn in happiness. It knits up very velvety, especially with #2 needles (which I can't use for this..but..just saying..). Anyhow, so my progress thus far, after two froggings because of gauge issues....

I'm onto the fourth repeat of the instep main pattern....getting very close to beginning the gusset. The pattern is lovely so far. Easy to follow, and it's got enough variance to keep me excited and happy, but not too much to boggle, and not too little to make me bored bored bored.

So....I'm beginning to have a little bit of an obsession with Biscotte & Cie's yarn. I haven't even bought any yet, but she has so much Harry Potter themed yarns, Captain Jack, and so many amazing other colorways based upon scenes, thoughts, etc. And the yarns actually knit up into patterns, like the one that looks like real watermelon with seeds.

I bought this yarn for Miss M's little sock project, and as I was winding it and commenting to Jim that it looks really amazing (and I'm not the biggest fan of pink) - he told me it looks like the Cheshire Cat. I've always been a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland and still want an original publishing of it....well, he's right! I wonder if there's a way I can capture that theme into the socks? I don't find many inventive child sock patterns. I could adapt one perhaps. Depends on my skills.

How am I ever going to get anything done for the new baby? I have too much and too many people to knit for as requests come pouring in lately. The baby will be here in about a month. Wait, that can't be right?! Seriously? Wow, I need to buy some bamboo diapers still, and make more longies.

I always had a sock obsession (I like that word), and then I sort of "grew" out of it. I remembered it when Miss M began to collect weird, funky, fun, and interesting socks. I don't even own any socks of my own right now. Yes. How did that happen? I've been wearing Jim's during cold weather. Which he blames me for all of his missing socks. Which is just such a lie. I mean, I'm the one that puts them in the laundry, washes and puts them away. But him....I just found a pair of his socks that he lost in the couch cushions a few days ago. The couch was a famous place for him to "lose" his socks on a weekly basis. I think when it comes to sock issues, he just needs to look inward and face the truth. Sorry my darling...but you know I don't like lying.

So....now I understand my psychology behind why I want to knit every sock pattern I see and buy massive amounts of sock yarn. My old obsession is reemerging and now it involves crafting. Mmmm. Sweet obsession. And soon, I may have my first pair of socks in years. And then I can move onto the Harry Potter sock patterns. Do you know there are at least 30 of them? Harry Potter fans rock. Rock my socks in fact.