The Halfway House

As promised - photos! I have two half-finished FO's to wear - my left hand and one foot will be toasty warm at least. This is what happens when you cast on two things at once.

Up first: Northern Lights (left) mitten, done in KnitPicks Palette yarn, with pattern also from KnitPicks. My first real serious attempt at Fair Isle. Quite lumpy, actually. You can't see the uneven stitches in the photo. I think some of it will even out with blocking, but it's still going to be a work in progress.



Next - a plain stockinette sock in Socks that Rock Love in Idleness. The toe - Method Two from Wendy's Toe-up gusset heel pattern, the heel - generic Widdershins - so very many thanks to Mel for this easy-to-follow translation of the original pattern.

This is the easiest toe-up cast on I have tried by far! No waste crochet yarn, no fancy fingerwork (Magic cast on). Just the humble backward loop. So simple, even I can remember it!


And now - off to the mall to tackle the Elves!

Diving into the stash

Still no packages from my mailman, so I broke down last night and pulled out the only "kit" I have in my stash right now - the Northern Lights mittens from Knitpicks. I bought the pattern last summer, and after reading it carefully, ordered the yarn that was listed in the materials section.

I cast on and knitted a few rows:

and I'm just thinking - this doesn't look like the photo in the pattern. The orange stripes are just too light. I checked the pattern again, and the yarn band, and I did order the right color - but its not the color listed on the Knitpicks site now! Since ordering the yarn, they have added a "buy colors shown in photo" button to their pattern order pages. And now it is Bark, not Fawn.

I found a great picture of the mittens as a FO with Fawn as the contrast color (as I would have if I keep going). If you read Jenna's post, she comments on the pattern error, and I agree with her that the Fawn doesn't offer enough color constrast. I think it's way too late to call and complain, especially since I already used a little of the Fawn for another project, so I'll just order a ball of Bark and start again in a week or so. Until then, I'll keep going with the colors I've got now, skipping over the rest of the corrugated ribbing to practice the Fair Isle and make sure I'm getting gauge with these needles (US1 bamboo). Of course, I'm not about to pay S&H for one lousy ball of wool, so I'll have to pick up some Shine Sport to make a little summer tank for Audrey.

Why is my stash not getting smaller??