good-natured ribbing

I received a single skein of Cash Iroha as part of a swap a long time ago. It is quite lovely but has very little yardage. Since the hand warmers in Last Minute Knitted Gifts calls for a single skein of this yarn, I made those! They will be a Christmas gift.

I made the thumb opening about 2x the specified length – they fit my hands so hopefully they’ll fit hers, too.

babette on my couch

I finally finished! This was supposed to be done for Zoe to take to school when she went back in September. Instead, I finished on the first day of winter. Good enough. This, though, is only phase one. It is a square blanket, and she wants it bigger. So I’m going to do another block of the largest squares to add to one end. But for a couple of days, at least, I call it done.

Zoe chose the colors, all Cascade 220, last summer. I’ve been making squares since then, since I’m pretty slow–more of a knitter than crocheter.

  

Since the cold weather hit a few weeks ago, I decided I needed all new winter accessories. My old hat is getting a bit pilly and my old mitts are threadbare on the palms. But what to knit?!

I decided on the fourth grade hat, a free pattern from Twist Collective. This was my first entrelac project. I think I liked the process, though it didn’t really make sense to me for the first couple of tiers! Here’s how it turned out:

I love the way it looks but wasn’t sure about the fit at first. It has grown on me and I’ve been wearing it a lot the past couple of days. I used Berocco Ultra Alpaca Light in several different colors. This yarn was left over from my mitten project.

These are Fiddlehead Mittens, pattern from HelloYarn (Fiddlehead Mittens“>available here). I love love love these mittens. The best part, besides their stunning outer beauty, is the super-warm-and-fuzzy liner. The mitts started off with an i-cord cast on (also a new technique for me). When the outer is done, you do the liner by picking up around the inside of the i-cord.

As you can see, I ran out of the Kidsilk Haze used for the liner. I decided to use some leftover pink mohair, Kid Seta, from some other projects (this and this) instead of buying another ball of the green. I don’t mind the “secret” pink thumbs.