Podster Mitts - FO

I must apologise again for being a terrible blogger, I really am sorry. Finding the time (and daylight, really failing where daylight is concerned!) to take photographs and get them uploaded has been proving difficult. I should make more of an effort but frankly the times when I am free I find myself putting napping or slumping doing not much at all ahead of blogger! Very naughty I know.

Enough of apologies though, everyone is busy sometimes and that's all there is to it!

What I did achieve at the weekend (between the napping and attempting to relax) was a finished pair of Podster Mitts, huzzah!





I LOVE them. They do the job perfectly, I can use my touch screen phone whilst keeping the rest of my hands warm and whilst we've not had a winter like last year it has been pretty nippy lately so my fingers are grateful.




I am considering a little button to secure the mitten top when wearing them as fingerless gloves, I have some lovely little wooden ones that would go just perfectly. I'm not sure though as they don't flap about particularly so I may just leave them as they are. I do love buttons though...





To my relief I had enough yarn, I even have a little left over but not much. It's lovely yarn and feels like it will be really hardwearing. I bought it at a lovely little shop called Create in Ilkley but for those without access to Ilkley the dyer has an Etsy shop as well.  Not that I'm encouraging stash enhancement you understand, it's just in case you were wondering.

Needle sizes, pattern and all that jazz are on my Ravelry project page.

I am now being a very good girl and have gone back to my WIP pile, details on what I'm knitting from that will come at some point I'm sure.

Also for anyone interested (and I'm not sure whether anyone is) my other WIP is progressing very well and is now two thirds done!

Podster Gloves - WIP

You remember all those WIPs I mentioned? The ones I intended to either finish or frog? Well I promise I'll get round to them but...but...but... I cast on something new.

New year, new project. I just couldn't help myself.

I've wanted to knit myself a pair of Podster Gloves for ages, apparently the pattern was published in September 2009 and I suspect I've been eyeing them up since then. I just never really got round to it. Back in September 2009 I was still very much learning, had knit a pair of socks but was intimidated by the skills needed for the gloves. Instead of braving it I filed them away for future knitting. By the time I was at a point where the pattern didn't look remotely scary I had far too many other interesting things to knit!

I decided 2012 would be the year I'd knit them, get them done before Baby Monkey arrives and throws all my knitting plans out of the window. Also I did get an iPhone about a month ago so they seem a more useful item to have than ever. We'll ignore my "I'm never knitting gloves again" from when I finished the green gloves for my mum over Christmas, let's pretend that never happened.

I went in the stash, this is good, stash reduction! The yarn wasn't a particularly long term resident, purchased in December 2010.




It's Ba T'at sock yarn in Pheasant. Considering how well behaved I was on the yarn buying front in 2011 this may actually be my most recent sock yarn purchase, shocking. I'm not 100% on that though. Anyway it is lovely stuff, 100% merino and technically sport weight not sock yarn. It feels like it should be very hard wearing and I love the colours.

It's knitting up nicely and the pattern is very clear and easy to follow. I've actually progressed beyond what I have pictures of and am already knitting the fingers of the second glove but here are two progress shots of the first glove.






I knit the first glove but have saved knitting the mitten top part until I've finished the second glove for fear of running out of yarn. I should have enough but should and will are not the same thing! At least this way I'll definitely have a pair of fingerless gloves should I have yarn for the mitten tops.

I'll get on to the WIP pile soon, honest.

Happy New Year!

Hello 2012!  Also hello to my third year of blogging (technically I suppose that's tomorrow as my first post was 2nd January 2010) and hello to another year as a knitter.

I am terrible at sticking to resolutions so I don't make them but I'm OK with at least having knitting plans or hopes for the year.  Obviously 2012 is going to be a bit different for me to other years as some time in late April or possibly early May a little person is going to arrive on the scene and I suspect they will be taking up most if not all of my knitting time, at least at first.  That means my knitting plans for 2012 are actually only plans for the first 4 months of 2012, any knitting I achieve beyond that is a bonus.

1. Finish or frog - I ended 2011 with a pretty shameful number of WIPs, perhaps not compared to some people but it was still more than I'm comfortable with.  They need to go, either to be finished or frogged.  I must not end 2012 with any of these projects still lurking in my knitting basked, in fact I'd rather they were out of the basket or at least being worked on steadily before the end of February at the latest.

2. Colourwork - This came up last year and was ignored, I will not ignore it this year.  I intend to complete one piece of colourwork knitting before the baby arrives just to prove to myself that I can do it and it's not really that scary.

3. Stashdown - I was pretty good at not buying new yarn last year, I must continue that.  I still have a lot in my stash, more than enough.  I should knit from it.  This is not a complete ban on purchases but I must end 2012 with less yarn than I started with.  I would count what I have to be sure but that's just too scary.  Instead I'll just try to use as much of it as possible and not buy new if there is something suitable already stashed, there almost certainly will be something suitable already stashed!  This is particularly important as we're hoping to move house soon and we are having to bring in lots of baby things so sacrifices must be made, not buying yarn is a pretty easy one when I could practically open my own shop anyway.

I think that's enough for 2012, I don't want to doom myself to failure and of course my biggest goal for the upcoming year is to have a healthy and happy baby and honestly nothing else really seems to matter much anymore.

I hope 2012 brings exciting things to everyone and is happier than 2011 which may have been exciting for me but which I also know was pretty sad generally for a lot of people and for the state of the world.