Eloquent Pedestrian

Remember reading? I used to read. Before all of this craziness with the mittens started, before I became a glove making fiend, before the holidays came and put a whirlwind through my house. In the push to get things done before Christmas, I had to put aside my reading in favor of knitting my fingers off. This was especially unfortunate as I get most of my reading from the Library, which means all of my reading has a due date. Just like being back in school. So of course now would be the time that several books I had been waiting for finally came to me, and have sat next to my bed and collected dust for weeks. Now that Christmas is past (though I do still have a glove to knit, more on that later) I am able to pick up some of those books. Fortunately some of them are e-books, and can be read while knitting, since I don't need my hands to keep them open. Here's everything I have, and how long I have to read it: Summer Knight: 5 Days. This is the fourth book in the Dresden C...

My brain is broken. It's beginning to look a lot like a brown Christmas here in Minnesota, all of our snow seems to have gone to Kansas, judging by the stock footage on the news. Our Christmas tree looks lovely: And I have finished three pairs of mittens. More or less. Or at least the knitting part. That counts, right? Getting mittens to match has proven more than a little problematic. I still have ends to weave in on the lotus mittens. And I have to create a button and button loop on the "alpaca" flip tops. Now those... lovelies I'm proud of. As I sat down to dinner with my friends, Gingersnap Mitten recipient looked at the flip tops and said "How is that harder than mine?" And I said, "Well, there are 8 cables in both of your mittens. There are 27 cables in one of these." That's right, I counted. Here they are in all their knotted glory: The flip tops and the Lotus mittens were both knit out of Caron Simply Soft, which is one of my ...

I actually wrote this post a week ago, but I didn't finish it, so I'm posting it now. Man-mitten project, entry two. I have three mittens knit. "That's great Sybylla. Who's mittens do you have done?" No one's. That's right. Three people to knit for and I knit one mitten for each of them. The one on the needles is done now, I just haven't gotten around to taking a picture of it. The fact is, the second mitten is never as fun.  Whether it's figuring out a pattern and cursing as the yarn or the needles or the pattern aren't right, first mittens are anything but boring. It's always exciting to work through a new pattern, see it coming out, finish it off and try on what you've done. But second mittens are so "been there, done that." The pattern's figured out, at least as much as it's going to be. You're using the same needles and same yarn. You still have to do all of that ribbing on the cuff (which I...

So it's time again to check my temperature and adjust my medication, because I must be crazy. It all started with the Eugenia mitten. Let me see if I have a picture...  I'll add it later. They were made with the leftover yarn from the Serenity blanket. This yarn was a gift from a friend of my mother's. It is Italian, I believe, by a brand called Gedifra, and it feels funny. I don't feel ungrateful saying that because it's the exact reason it was given to me. Anyway, the Eugenia looks lovely, feels a bit odd, and was crazy fast to knit. Which is when the crazy struck. I decided, if mittens were so quick to knit, why not knit them for Christmas presents? Next thing I know I've got four ravelry patterns and I'm at Joann's looking for an odd set of yarns.  The four mittens will be for my three best friends and my mother. Now, I took a year and a half to knit a guy a scarf once, so I was expecting time and dedication to be an issue. But it soon ...