FO Friday: Helical striped cowl and matching mitts (2015 FOs #9 and #10)

My life is extremely boring at the moment - write, edit, rinse, repeat. Last night, however, I went out! I went to a screening of Dirty Laundry Live - on a school night! After 10pm! What a wild child. It was very funny and it really was great to get out of the house and away from my computer (on a side note, I encourage everyone to get tickets to sit in the audience for TV shows once in a while. It's fun to see how things are done, it's free and sometimes they give you wine. For me, it's something a bit different to what I usually do and different is good).

We had 10 minutes to kill before leaving so I decided to take the opportunity to take some photos of two of the projects I've just finished. This was a bad idea! These photos are terrible and odd - they capture a lot of detail but tell you nothing at all about the project. Let me illustrate this in more detail.

This shot tells you nothing about how the cowl sits (it falls to just above my belly button).

In this shot, it is possible to see the desperation and exhaustion of a week of thesis work in the giant bags under my eyes.

This one's okay. The pattern is Mitt Envy - it's free and it's excellent. I added 10 rows extra to the cuff to provide extra under-jumper warmth.

The cowl can be worn in a long loop or doubled for a really warm, snuggly wrap.

(Oh, those bags!)

I'm not even sure what this shot was trying to demonstrate!

The wool I used was Heirloom Easy Care 5ply, four balls exactly. It was a bit rough to work with but softened up a lot on blocking and I think it will be really warm and durable. Now that it's done, I'm going to drop this project off at my local Lincraft KOGO collection point and hopefully it will find a good home where it is of some use to somebody.

Till next week :)

WIP Wednesday: The Excuses Edition

Hello! I'm back! I've been a bit absent lately, but I promise I have a good excuse. Over the last year, some colleagues and I have been putting together a national postgraduate conference and, after many months of planning, it finally ran last week. Here is me giving the opening address:

This is going to sound stupid but I always forget how really short I am until I see myself in a photo! The conference was a huge success and went really well but I was useless on the weekend. On Saturday I seriously woke up, read a book, had a shower, got into fresh pyjamas, watched a movie and went back to bed. I could not even handle talking to anyone until Sunday. However,  I'm now back to normal (ie avoiding working on my thesis in any way I can while still attempting to meet my deadlines. Not a good plan...).

Given the well-known relaxing properties of knitting, I spent many (stressed!) hours stockinette stitching away during the preparation period. There were many, many different projects, but this is what I've been working on most recently:

In response to this very cold winter, KOGO put out a call for gloves, mitts and hats so I picked up a scarf I had cast on but not done much more. On Sunday, when I was ready for something a bit more challenging I started the matching mitts. Given that timeliness is somewhat of an issue, I should probably have been working on something that's not double-knitted in 5-ply wool but I was not thinking straight. But now I am, and back and ready to blog :)

2013 FO #17: Marvellous Mountainfoot Mitts

As someone who works from home and likes to be comfortable, I wear a lot of pyjamas. Clean pyjamas - it's important to maintain certain standards - but pyjamas nevertheless. This can lead to some awkwardness when I answer the door during the day, so I'm constantly toying with the idea of wearing proper clothes, but really, who am I dressing for? For me, comfort is consistently more important than any other consideration.

So imagine my delight when I popped in to Myer yesterday to discover a new range of pyjamas that looks like clothes!

The brand is Jethro & Jackson and I want to buy all of their pyjama dresses! What a brilliant idea - crossover daytime/nightime sleepwear. I can't wait to see what their winter wear will be.

I'm sure there was something else I was going to write about...

Oh yeah - I finished some more mitts! These were actually done last September but they lived in my very very cold office at uni, so I never got around to photographing them. They're exactly the same as the ones I made for my sister except that I use different colourways of yarn - copper and I can't remember the other one. I heart them because they're gorgeous and, very important, super warm.

Mitten Epiphany (2013 FO #12)

Happy Monday morning, everyone! While that is a particularly cheery greeting for a Monday morning, I am particularly cheery right now because today marks the point at which there is less winter to come than there has winter been. We are more than halfway through the coldest, wettest, dreariest season of the year and I am incredibly excited!

Yes, I do complain about the cold all the time and yes, what kind of moron complains about the cold in Melbourne year-in-year-out (it's hardly a surprise when it gets cold, really. Not only does it happen every year, there's a whole season that exists to warn you that winter's coming). That said, I believe in providing solutions rather than just complaining about problems because there is literally nothing more boring than listening to someone complain and complain and complain and complain without doing anything about it (except watching golf. That's really fucking boring). After the disaster of the Endpaper mitts I was making for my sister, I was a bit disheartened about knitting in general and mine in particular. It was cold, I was feeling bleurgh and motivation was in really short supply, so weeks passed without me doing anything to get the mitts done. However, last week in a desperate search for some Vicks Vaporub (it's not winter without a chest infection - fortunately, not mine) I stumbled across a drawer I had forgotten about that is filled solely with bits of yarn left over from other projects. There was 30g of Mountain Colors Barefoot left over from my mum's dream socks, I knew a pattern that made supercomfortable mitts from small amounts of yarn - I had a pattern plus yarn epiphany!

The finished project is fantastic! The yarn is warm and soft and the pattern fits (hehe) like a glove! I lengthened the cuff and finger ribbing to use all of the yarn I had and omitted the cables because I hate them.

Thumbs up to fingers being kept warm and a job eventually being done!

The heater's on and the socks are done (2013 FO# 3)

Yesterday, for the first time this year, it was cold enough to turn on the heating. I hate that day! This is for two reasons. Firstly, it means I will be poorer for the next few months because heating this double-brick sturdily constructed house I live in is very expensive. Secondly, because it means I can no longer deny that winter is here and the facts that I will a) be chilly and b) have to put up with Lucy whinging  because she can't play outside like she wants to.

I want to go outside but I can't because it's RAINING!! 

 In knitting news, it's all mitts all the time at Chez HereIKnit.

My sister say my old and tattered Alpaca Endpaper Mitts when we were out for brunch last week and promptly requested a pair for herself. Since I will never turn down a request from someone who appreciates the thought, time and effort that goes into handknitting (which she does), as soon as I got home I sorted through the stash and found exactly the right wool. My sister loves Western Australia, I had some gorgeous naturally dyed wool from Bilby Yarns in my stash, and so I started straight away.

This is my third time knitting this pattern but never before two-at-a-time magic-looped. I think it will be easier for the stranded part to knit this way but I can foresee lots of untangling of yarns in my future before these mitts are complete.

The second pair I started are some mittens of my own design that I'm making to match my Grantham hat, which is finished and blocking. I couldn't find any patterns that suited what I wanted so I thought I'd have a go at working out a pattern myself. I figure how hard can making a mitten really be? It's just a tube with a thumb on the side.

I do not know why my iPhone overexposes the image every time I photograph this yarn. Maybe it's the colour? IDK. Anyway, I've just finished the ribbing and my pattern seems to be going alright so far, although it is early days. I guess we'll see.

In surpremely non-exciting news

I finished another pair of socks for Sam. For what may be the first time ever, I finished his birthday socks prior to his actual birthdate! It's a birthday miracle.

But really, pretty non-exciting to anyone but him. The yarn is Regia Design Line by Erika Knight. As always with Regia, the yardage is terrible so the socks had 15 rather than 20-cm cuffs. As always, the yarn felt nice to knit with but I'm not sure how well they will stand up. The colours are also very nice, so I think Sam will like them, which is what's important, really.

And that's all I've got this Friday. I hope everyone has a lovely weekend and stays warm and dry.