Mitting Knittens

Here it is, that time of year again, when I knit mittens.  I seem to have gotten into the tradition of knitting a pair of mittens for the neighbor kids every year.  They're still young, so they don't take too long.  This year's mittens are featuring the dyed yarn created when I presented a workshop on Dying with Easter Egg Dyes (or Kool-Aid) earlier this year at guild.  In a nutshell, you wind the yarn into a loose "cake" using a ball winder, soak it in water, squeeze out excess, place in your dye bath and microwave it (1 or 2 minutes at a time, 2 or 3 cycles).  Dye bath is quite shallow and only comes up to just below half way up the the "cake".  When done, let cool enough to handle, squeeze out extra liquid, flip over the "cake" and repeat with a different color dye.  It's great fun and creates such random patterns when knitted.

The other knitting project is a pair of silk mittens, knitted straight from the mawata (a la Yarn Harlot).  This time, I'm using Elizabeth Zimmermann's Mitered Mittens from Knitter's Almanac (a book that needs to be in every knitter's library).  Slow start on these while I figured out what needles were going to work best (metal dpn's). 

Those of us who follow the Yarn Harlot have read that she is pretty sure that knitting is possibly addictive.  I believe her.  Not only that, but I seem to require a very high fiber diet.  If there isn't a goodly amount in a given day, I'm edgy.  Good thing I've got lovely customers to keep me happy!

I hope to finish up spinning for our guild's Lala Shawl knitalong.  I have over half the yarn spun and am so pleased with it.  Hopefully, now that I'm getting a bit of balance to my days, I'll finish up the spinning by the end of the week.

This is Daisy after being with us for close to 6 months.  She is a pretty nice cat...friendly without being needy, likes to be near you but not on you and purrs a lot.  Daisy's fur has pretty much grown back on her ears and even her nose is furrier.  Our vet wasn't sure if that would grow back or not.  Her coat is thick and even and she's put on a fair amount of weight.   We do, however, call her a walking hairball...I swear you can watch the fur fall off her as she walks around...kind of like Pig Pen from Charlie Brown.