What a crazy week.

First off, thanks again for all the lovely comments on the blogiversary post! I had so much fun discovering a ton of new-to-me blogs and making some new Ravelry friends as well. I closed the comments shortly after midnight last night and copied everything over to a spreadsheet so I’d have numbers to feed into the number generator. It selected Holly and Rachel as the knitter winners and Dave as the coaster winner. Check your emails folks.

Speaking of last night, a certain YarnHarlot was in the general vicinity, and my friend Rachel and I headed out to Ann Arbor after work to hang out with all the knitters. Her talk was fun and funny and fabulous, just as it was the last time I saw her. I didn’t spot as many of the local knitters that I recognize as I thought I would, but we had fun anyway. (We’ll pretend that that isn’t a blurry dark photo with the camera still in macro mode and the flash turned off, ok? I was star struck, who thinks to check the camera settings?)

I was knitting away frantically on sock 1 for Round 3 of Sock Madness the whole evening and we sat at the end of the row and talked to just about everyone as they passed by until the end of the book line caught up to us. I was just finishing up the toe, and actually kitchnered it closed shortly after while we waited for dinner. I’m working frantically on sock #2 today, hoping to get the pair done and submitted tonight and maybe make it through to round 4.  More info on the socks when the pair is done. Must get back to frantic knitting right now.

I’m really quite psyched and only a little nervous. Funny, the freebies don’t make me this anxious, but that little innocuous buy button has my nerves a flutter today. I snuck it up on the pattern page last night, linked it up to Ravelry this afternoon, and now am officially announcing it. The Kiss the Frog Mittens pattern is available for sale.

Go check out Jody’s pair  on her blog, she did an awesome job test knitting for me and picked some great colors. Hers turned out really really well and make me all giddy and stuff.

I look forward to seeing all the interpretations of this particular little brain blizzard of mine!

The mittens are all finished and dry from blocking. I absolutely adore them and very well may make another pair for myself.

FO: Kiss That Frog Mittens

This is my own pattern which will be available for sale on this blog (and/or on Ravelry) sometime in the next few weeks.

A blocking preview… all pinned out like this, they remind me of dissecting frogs in school though.

Look for a FO post with better photos this weekend. I should also have the pattern cleaned up enough to send to testers early next week.

At the same time we were getting major snow flurries outside last week, I’d been having a nice knitting brain blizzard. I love how some simple task can cascade into a whole flurry of activity and take me from a very passe knitting funk right back into a finger flying obsessive state in a matter of days.

So, the little nudge? I’d had a couple Jo-Ann’s gift cards burning a hole in my pocket, and they had Ott lights at 50% off last week, so I stopped by on Tuesday to spend some gift money. Conveniently they also had Sugar & Cream and Patons Classic wool on sale, so I got one of the nicer table lamps and 9 skeins of yarn. Well, when picking out the Patons, I had a little spark that lead towards a gift idea. I picked up a few colors and headed home to play. I knew what I wanted to make, who I wanted to make them for, and the ideas just sort of snowballed. I spent most of Wednesday evening with excel open charting my idea and tweaking it as I found more and more inspiration. I found a few resources that lead me in the right direction for charting what I wanted the finished outcome to be and I cast on.

During the day at work on Thursday, I kept fluttering back to that spreadsheet and tweaking it more here and there. I changed my mind regarding my color choices, simplified a few things, changed around a couple other ideas, and rushed home to rip out what I’d started and start over. I knit half a mitten Thursday night and finished the first mitten on the train to Chicago on Saturday.

I’ve received permission to ruin Christmas from the recipient, and I’ll probably put out the call for test knitters once I’ve finished this pair and made some more tweaks to the pattern. I’ll also have to look into what it will take to publish-for-sale on my blog (whole new territory there). Also, feel free to assist with brainstorming clever pattern names in the comments, everything I’ve come up with so far is sorta lame.

So, here’s the Christmas-gift-ruining preview, excuse the unblocked quick-and-dirty photos, it was cold outside. My sister-in-law has a plethora of obsessions, but generally anything pink or with frogs is a solid choice. The pink Patons wool jumped out at me and I wanted to play with stranded knitting some more, so these mittens are a pink and green frog love pattern. However, unlike the other critter mittens I’ve seen around the critter is almost a hidden surprise. The back of the hand has the mod circle motif, and each mitten will have half of the frog on the palm. So when the wearer puts her hands together like an open book, she’ll have a frog in her hands.

I didn’t have the right set of needles with me to cast on the second mitten on the train, otherwise I’d likely have a pair to show off already (did I mention? Totally psyched about these mittens). I do have a different pair to show off finished today though, as I also had my Rosy mittens with me on the train and finished up the thumb of the second mitten while watching the Giants win the Superbowl last night.

Rosy Mittens, Pattern: Generic Norwegian Mitten Chart, US 3 needles, Dale Heilo Yarn in a dark magenta color and a natural/khaki color. My gauge was on the tight side. While these do fit, they feel a little small on my hands and once I’ve got a few more pairs (including the froggy ones shown above) under my belt, I may try to find a smaller handed person to give this pair to. Not bad for my first full scale stranded project though.

Oh, yeah… I was in Chicago this weekend. We had our annual off-season Whirlyball get together on Saturday. When all the crazy weather rolled in on Thursday night/Friday morning, I booked the train last minute so I wouldn’t have to drive. It was interesting. I’ve actually never taken the train before. I’ve been on a few subways and obviously more amusement park trains than I can count, but even with an Amtrak station within walking distance of campus while I was in college and the local station here literally across the street from work, I mostly felt it was easier to just drive or fly. Especially when trying to take quick weekend trips. But for these occasional off-season Chicago trips, it was nice to avoid the weather. And it was comfy to just sit with the iPod and knit for the 4 hour trip. Whirlyball was a blast as always and I have the bruises and aches to show for it along with plenty more great memories of a fun get together with great friends.

Well, full disclosure is a good way to start the month, so here’s what’s on my needles right now and what’s coming onto the needles in the very near future.

Gift Knits

Socks for my dad are started and progressing slowly a little bit here and there. I’ve got a little longer to go on the cuff before turning the heel and completing sock number one. These are slow going due to the size 0 needles but at least they aren’t boring. I’m still working out the fine balance between sock size and yarn conservancy. I’d prefer to not have to do an alternate color for the toes, but I’m prepared to face that if necessary. I’m knitting these out of Knit Picks Essential in navy in the Gentleman’s Sock with Lozenge Pattern from Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks book.

I’ve also got a My So Called Scarf in Sari Silk in progress. Everything I’ve heard about this yarn and seen of this yarn is true. It’s pretty and looks really nice in a ball, but it doesn’t lend itself to many patterns. It crimps and over twists itself and I’ve pulled out a few tufts of fuzz so far in knitting it up. However, this pattern seems to be taming it fairly well and I think the relative that will get it for Christmas will appreciate the scarf and the story behind how the yarn is made.

Selfish Knits

These will be hibernating, but I do have a handful of selfish projects still on the needles.

My Norwegian mittens are still in progress. These may not hibernate as it shouldn’t take too much to wrap up the second mitten now that I’ve got a better handle on the two-handed knitting. There’s really not even enough new to show off. The second one has a cuff and it looks just like the other one did.

Pomotomous Socks - the first sock has been long for so long waiting on a mate, it won’t hurt too much waiting for another couple months for the second. It’s at least got a cuff started now. Again, not enough to bother with a photo.

Cable Down Raglan - I’ve made it one cable repeat into the body of the sweater and it’s gorgeous so far. The color is a deeper burgundy than is showing in the photo. It’ll be ok hibernating and will be rewarding to return to after the holidays. It’ll also be good insentive to try to knock off as much of the Christmas crafting as soon as possible on the off chance I could have it finished in time to wear at the holidays  But I’m not holding my breath on that one.

On the deck, I’ve got plenty of socks, hats, scarves, and more gloves, mitts and mittens. If I’m truly giving full disclosure, I also cast on a length-wise bulky garter stitch scarf last night that I haven’t fully decided if it gets to stay OTN yet or not. That one will go in the potential gift pile if I decide to keep it around.

My car is having an expensive and torrid love affair with the dealership service shop. A few weeks ago the casing blew off the mirror, the check engine light came on, then the brakes started grinding. That was a pricey visit and it was happy for about a week. The day after the new mirror piece was put on the car, the check engine light came back on.

Then on my way home from Knitterpalooza, all hell broke loose. We suffered a catastrophic failure. First it looked like a clogged intake, then they dug deeper. The deeper they got the more expensive things got and it has progressed to the point of needing a new engine. For a lot of money.

After trying a few other avenues, I’ve ended up requesting a loan on prosper.com which is an interesting concept… just not one I’d ever thought I’d have to use as a borrower.

So, a huge repair cost on top of my other debts is quite possibly the catastrophic rock bottom event I’ve been stashing for. The yarn stash isn’t going to get any additions til this thing is paid off, and there will be some major cutbacks on the traveling next year while I behave like an adult and get my ass out of some debt.

Knitting, however, has been a great stress outlet through this whole week. I’ve frogged a couple socks that were getting neglected, and cast on for mittens at the beginning of the week. The first one is done and just needs a thumb. I’m using helloyarn’s generic Norwegian mitten graph and lifted a few traditional motifs from various other free pattern charts. My first corrugated ribbing, and I made myself knit all the light color continental-style, which as a left-handed reverse-directional knitter is all kinds of weird as I’m then holding the yarn in my right hand. But I think it might get me one step closer to knitting right handed. Or at least give me an alternative when my wrists get tired knitting Lefty English style. Plus the whole two-colored two-handed yarn handling took some getting used to, but after about 20 rows, I started getting the hang of it.

Mittens aren’t quite what I’d planned as my next project after my sweater, but it’s a nice diversion while I decide what the next sweater will be. I’ve got yarn and patterns handy for a few that I want to try. Right now I’m debating between three good contenders. The cable-down raglan from the spring Interweave in a deep claret colored Cascade 220 is one option. It’s gorgeous, and would be a good “next logical step” after a plain worsted weight top-down raglan. I’ve also got yarn and pattern for Rogue, either in a tweedy banana yellow or a rustic tweedy orange. Rogue is one of those patterns that got me interested in knitting and I’ve seen so many wonderful versions of it out there that I want one for my very own.

The other one is one that just lives in my head. I have 20 balls of Rowan Yorkshire tweed 4ply in two colors, a green color and a khaki color. I’ve also got a couple balls each of two accent colors, a grey and a purple. I’m envisioning something with the light color as yoke, upper sleeves and the green lower on the body with the accent colors acting as a transitional fair isle band between the two colors. This one looks good in my mind, but the yarn is small gauge and coming out of my head it will take a little more work to get the FO to match my vision. I’m not sure if I’m ready to tackle all of that as my second sweater.

Thoughts?