Kill your darlings: the end of the Endpaper Mitts

On the Tuesday after a long weekend during which I watched the entire first season of Game of Thrones (oh to be the person with the contract to supply the fake blood for that show!) it feels incredibly appropriate to open the week by killing my darlings. Kill your darlings, I have recently discovered, is a term used to describe a particular strategy for writing prose which is based on the premise that if you really really like bits of your writing then you can't be objective about them and, if you can't objectively judge them, you can never be sure if they are any good therefore they must die (is it just me or does the language seem a little overly dramatic for a series of letters on a page? It's just writing, really.) The Thesis Whisperer even detailed ways to apply this technique to a thesis.

Now I think that deleting something just because you like it is actually a pretty stupid strategy but I understand the basic idea behind the concept. It can take a bit of courage to face that just because you really like a piece of writing - even a piece of writing that contains a truly excellent pun or alliterative phrase - doesn't necessarily mean it's any good. And, to stretch the metaphor a bit further, just because you've working on a knitting project for a while and you become attached to it, even if the knitted fabric is really really nice, doesn't mean it's going to work.

So this morning, I took a long hard look at a project that I have been suspecting for a while was not going to work...

..faced up to the fact it was coming out much much bigger than it should have been...

..and murdered my darlings.

Looks like my sister is going to have to wait a little bit longer for her nice warm pair of mitts.

Swim like a smug person, knit like a crazy one. Or is it the other way round?

I like to start my week off by going for a swim. My favourite weekend activities are eating, drinking, watching movies and the football and knitting, so I spend a lot of time sitting on my arse. A Monday swim gets the blood pumping and, because I use a hydrotherapy pool (sorry, a 'wellness' pool) where the water is kept at constant (lovely!) temperature of 34 degrees, when I leave the pool I feel both energised and relaxed. It's a wonderful cure for the Monday blues (also good, wine. I like to use both methods.)

My resolve was tested yesterday though. There was a moment where I was sitting in my car in the pool car park and this was the view from my window and I thought, "What crazy person goes swimming when it is twelve degrees and raining outside? Go home, you insane person!"

But I went and admittedly did feel better for it and (this is important!) both smugly virtuous and mentally prepared to start my week. Mainly smugly virtuous :) I suspect I was a bit insufferable to spend time with yesterday afternoon...

You've got to love Melbourne, though. After yesterday's miserable weather, today was lovely, sunny, clear and bright. A beautiful day for going to the pool. ARGH!

Oh well. I took advantage of the sunlight to take a photo of one of my lingering WIPS - the Endpaper Mitts for my sister.  I am really struggling with finishing them. They're the third pair I've made so the pattern is familiar and boring. The cast on is too tight so as soon as I finish with the stranded knitting I need to frog the cuffs on both gloves and reknit them. I'm doing at least one row a day but at that rate it'll take me another month to get them done. In the meantime, want to knit on anything and everything that is not these mitts! Blah blah whine whine complain complain. I really need to stop whinging and taking photos of them and just sit down for a few hours with a DVD and get them over and done with. As my friend Cara would say, suck it up, princess, and get the job done! 

We'll see how well that plan goes.

WIP Wednesday: My cat is the boss of me edition

Another Wednesday, another round-up of all of the things I've been working on. I am actually blogging this from my bed because, in the epic power struggle that is sitting my desk chair (it's Lucy's bed at night, she doesn't like it when I use it during the day), Lucy is currently on top. My aunt said to me this morning "You know you're the alpha cat of the household, right?"

Sure I know it, but does Lucy? I am starting to think not.

I was really hoping to get my blue fluffy mitts done this week (not least because it's been bloody freezing the last few days!) but catastrophe struck:

I broke my 3.5mm KnitPicks needle. Again. This is no exaggeration the fifth of these needles that I have broken! It's ridiculous. I never have a problem with any other size except for this one and my yarn store doesn't stock the nickel-plated tips. Grrr!! 

However, I quickly replaced one blue project with another and the Baby Surprise Jacket and I have been spending some quality time together:

As you can see, I'm not great at random striping. I should definitely have this one finished by next week and I'm looking forward to going shopping for some very cute buttons this weekend!

Finally, I've been working on my sister's Endpaper Mitts. I'm up to the thumb increase, so over 50% done. I'm a bit worried because it's really clear in the knitting where my tension has changed - what looks like a line in brown is just me knitting one row a whole lot tighter than the previous row. I'm hoping it'll block out - blocking fits everything, right? Right.

Now I should be leaving my nice warm house to go to uni but, well, I don't want to. It's cold and wet and dreary outside :( Sometimes being a grown-up sucks. 

WIP Wednesday: Mitt Madness

I am really struggling with daylight saving, and my struggling I mean I think I might be incapable of ever remembering that it exists. I got home from lunch, settled down to work and then, when I looked up a few hours later, the sky had darkened to such an extent I had to put on the light. It wasn't even 5 o'clock yet!

It's been mitt madness at Chez HereIKnit over the last week. The Endpaper Mitts are coming along nicely - I'd forgotten how addictive stranded colour work is ("Just one more row..."). The Bilby Yarn is perfect for this type of project because it's very 'sticky' - you know the inside of the gloves will slowly felt with wear, making them even more warm. I am struggling to maintain my tension with two-handed knitting, though (which you can see a little bit here with the white diamonds on the right glove) but I'm hoping blocking will fix everything.

In the time it took me to move these gloves and put the second gloves down, all of the light had gone!

So I fiddled with the settings on my camera software to make it brighter so you could see how much I've done. My skills with photography are truly a gift.

I'm pretty chuffed with these! Plain mittens are just as easy to make without a pattern as plain socks are (like durr, I can hear every experienced knitter everywhere saying). I'd have done more but it's really hard to work on dark navy mohair yarn at night, so these only get worked on during the day.

Now, back to work - deadlines care nothing for daylight savings.

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.