Thursday, April 7, 2016

A Little Bling for that Thing

I love my mitts. Recently, I've started watching for small pieces of jewelry at estate sales and garage sales to add to the mitts to give just a little bit of glitz. See what you think:


You can't use too big a piece, or they get in the way or weigh the mitt down. And I've been thinking of tacking them down with a little thread. But they're super cute. And you don't have to get all matchy matchy and try for two pieces per set of mitts. One little bit of glitz will do. My first attempt was using a pin with a hat, but the pin was too heavy and the recipient parted with the pin. So if you try this, be careful to go for something lightweight.



Do you like my cardboard cutout hands? I had a bad day and chewed my fingernails, so I can't be a hand model right now.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

My "Only a Mother Can Love" Sock

This is my first sock. I have carefully extended my leg in such a fashion that it looks like a work of art.


I like my sock. It has a red yarn thread running through the heel, which you cannot see, because I am supposed to put an afterthought heel into this sock. But if I do that, then this sock would fit my husband, rather than me. Although I like him a lot, he hasn't done anything spectacular enough this week to earn this sock. So I suppose it will have to go heel-less. The yarn is very forgiving and does not seem to mind not having a heel.

I don't want to tell you about how bad the toe is. I tried to follow a pattern, but I am using teensy 9" circular needles, followed by 3 ever so sweet bendy double-pointed needles. None of the patterns take into account my avant-garde choice of needles. And then, at the end, I was supposed to have 12 stitches left on my needles, and I was supposed to do a kitchener stitch. I looked up how to do a kitchener stitch, and concluded that I had lived my life well and did not need to be the next person to learn how to do that. So I darned the stupid toe together in as delicate a fashion as I could come up with. Since you are not my floor, you will, hopefully, never get to see what happens when a woman has had a falling out with her socks.

This is the yarn that I used. I bought it at the Honeoye Craft Lab. It is hand dyed by Liz Yokel, the store owner.




There appears to be enough yarn to try this again. And perhaps, after I've had some Andy's Candies, I will come back to that. But for now, I am going to sit here with my one handknit sock that looks like someone stapled the bottom, and just be satisfied.

Liz's yarn is 400 yards, 4 ounces
75% superwash merino/15%nylon/10%tencel
hand dyed with eco-friendly dyes
4 ply, fingering/sock weight
7 sts/in, US 0-3 needle
$19 for the skein