The hell you say? I finished something else?

Why yes, I did. Something that's been languishing for close to a year. And it took me something like 3 days to complete it -- which makes me mad I didn't address it much, much sooner.

Finally, it is my great pleasure to present -- GRAMPS!



Made with Debbie Bliss Stella - which has since been discontinued. It's a cotton/silk blend, and was total hell on my hands. Redeeming qualities? Well, #1 just LOOK at it! It's gorgeous and beautifully textured. #2 it's soft, soft, soft. #3 (and this one kills me!) machine washable, bitches!

The pattern is a little vague once it comes time to address the yoke, and I let that intimidate me for many, many months. Turns out my distress was completely unfounded. I am a competent knitter, and I let myself forget that when it came to this sweater. As long as you can read your knitting, and follow the flow of the cabling, you'll be fine with the yoke.




The most frustrating thing for me was the lack of images of the back of the sweater on Ravelry. Should I be maintaining the purl stitch, or ditching it in favour of a knit? The answer is let the purl stitch go - you're eating the rib with the raglan decreases. Maintaining the purl looks off.
If you look closely at the armpit area in this photo (especially on the right side of the image) you'll see what I mean.



The sweater looks totally adorable on Boober, but he was pretty unimpressed when I slapped it on him to check it out. Maybe I should have taken off his vest first . . . . modeled photos were not obtained.

AND, I finished something else too!




Fastener practice for a busy bag swap!
On this side, a button and a (super stiff, not at all easy) snap.



And on this side, a zipper to nowhere, and 2 velcro tabs. Thus far, Boober has really enjoyed the velcro tabs and fully ignored everything else. These will go into the post today or tomorrow and will hopefully be enjoyed by other 1 year olds.

2 FOs in 2 days

My fingers have been busy.

Endpaper mitts. This is the second time I've made this pattern up. I still think it's far too snug for words, but my niece requested these . . . so there it is.




I hope she gets a lot of use out of these!

And then the very next day (yesterday, in fact) I finished these up:





I'm wearing them now!
The pattern is called Fishtails. I made it with String Theory's Caper -- which has some cashmere content. That's right. I have cashmere socks.
I rather like this pattern - and I added some of my own touches. I added stitches, I used a flap heel construction. My only issue with it is that the toes are weird. I followed the pattern and I'm not wild about it. Too pointy.

So that's 2 FOs in 2 days. It's like the pre-kid days again!! Well, sort of. It took me a month to do the socks, and 3 weeks or so to the the fingerless mitts. I just happened to finish them both up within 24 hours of one another.

Still knitting?

Yup, I still do that too.

In fact, it seems like I've been doing a lot of knitting lately. It's the right time of year - cold, miserable. Just right for a lapful of knitting.

Let's see. I've done a few more socks. There's this basic ribbed sock. I love it - I think it's my new favourite pattern. I didn't make the leg long enough, but there's always next time.



And I'm working on the second sock in this pair right now --



It's been kind of a pain in the ass and I had to rip the first one out twice . . . but it's pretty cool looking. I did make some modifications to the pattern - I cast on 64 stitches, did a heel flap rather than short row heels (I need to work on my short rows before I can use them for heels). And I'm not running the tail motif all the way down the sock. On the inside of the sock I'm stopping the motif at the heel flap.

I also finally finished Sk8r for Shall We Knit?



And I'm working on some Endpaper mitts for my niece.




Of course, I still have a little boy cardigan on the needles, and a Dahlia cardi for me . . . and I have to knit something small for a swap. And Sweet Pea wants another sock monster to keep her buddy Joaquin (Keeny) company. And I want to make Boober a Texture Bite teddy bear.
I don't think I'll be giving up knitting anytime soon.