Olympic rundown

1. I finished a hat for Ravelympics:

Pattern: Sixteen-Cable Hat, by Circe Belles.
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca in Lovage. I love this yarrrrrn.
needles: sizes 6 and 8
notes: I think my gauge was off (didn't check). Two fewer rounds of ribbing, started decreases after third cable round instead of fourth. Love it; husband seal of approval ("I like the twisty bits").

2. I dyed yarn for Ravelympics:

I don't know what to use it for, because I suspect the base (Brown Sheep Top of the Lamb Sport, tag removed by the weirdo store so I don't know the colorway but it was white) is too scratchy to wear next to the skin. I'm not getting a "felt me" vibe off of this, either. Thoughts?

Still: look at what you can do with food coloring and Kool-Aid! Just mix your complementary colors until the Kool-Aid is coaxed out of neon status, and you can get almost anything.

3. My husband and I attended a curling league open house last Sunday. There were 600 people there.

4. Yes, I love the crazy pants of Norway.

5. SXSW is almost upon us. Brace for impact.

FO: Mitten Puppets

A few weeks back, I finished a late Christmas gift for a couple friends of ours.

See? They're mittens...

and they're puppets!

The puppet faces only sort of resemble my friends themselves, but it's enough to get the point across. I'd suggest it as a great gift for any newlyweds in your life.

Pattern: Basic Mitten Pattern from Ann Budd's Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns (remembering to take at least 10% off her stitch count for each size, of course).
Yarn: Rowan Soft Baby, color SH004, less than one ball.
Needles: Size 5 bamboo DPNs, and oh my gosh has anyone told you how wonderful those feel? Very light and easy on the hands.
Notes: The embroidery is all scraps from the stash, in fingering and laceweight.

Defeating Bad Juju, One Skein at a Time

Sometimes, you're in the middle of knitting a sweater for somebody, and a big reason comes along to stop knitting it. Sometimes you keep going with it, and along you float down De-Nile river, feeling increasingly sad about the state of the sweater, mean things that have happened, health care in America, every possible character flaw you might possibly possess, and the Amazonian rain forest.

A blog is not the place to discuss specifics of this sort, but rest assured, I'm still married. (Not that kind of sweater curse.)

In November, I abandoned one such case of denial. In a burst of highly effective catharsis, I frogged a partial sweater.

I used some of the yarn to make a gift bag for someone else.



With my new sewing machine, I sewed a lining out of a fabric whose color coordinates in a very clever way with emerald greens, browns, and grays. (Didn't shoot a picture, drat! Trust me?) The gift bag has been given, and with it some of that negative energy (dang, I sound like one of those people) has been defeated.

It was altogether for the best.

Help for Haiti donation: thank you!

Thanks to everyone who purchased my pattern in the last two weeks. I don't have an enormous donation - with my own money I'm rounding it up to $12 - but it's $12 that ought to be given.

I am giving the money to Medicine Sans Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders today.