Warm Hands, Hand Warmers

It's been so cold lately here in the Mile High City that some additional layering items have been needed to combat the cold. Enter entry no. 1: The ubiquitous fingerless mitts. I used this pattern, which while good, I should have made it a tad bit longer. I do like them and they were fun to make using Regia Banner Color. I have enough from using one 50 g ball of sock yarn to make a pair of socks (as I bought the yarn for socks, I have 2 50 g balls). I think these socks will be for M2. He already liked the yarn.



I thought about making a hat out of the remaining yarn, but Cyn deterred me from that notion. I still think it would have been fun to make a hat, but I do think the stripes would be much thinner, so I might not like that result if I pursued it.

Oh and thanks for the comments on the last post, although I think some of you might have been confused. The reason the lace is dejected is because of me. I found that using the Angora Tweed yarn that I'm, in fact, allergic to angora, as well as mohair. The hairy yarns and I don't seem to be getting along all that well, although alpaca seems to be fine. I'm just not that keen on all that shedding, but I can use it. I wore an alpaca scarf I have today just to test it out and I suffered no ill effects. The angora yarn will be given away. I left the lace project lying around for almost 1.5 weeks until I finally ripped the other night. Just ripping the yarn and winding it into a hand-wound ball seemed almost too much for me to bear.

In other news, lots of knitting has been happening, but in fits and spurts. Still working on the Top-Down Raglan Cardi, although the progress since the weekend has been nil. I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but back in November I took a new position within my same company. It is still doing customer service, but as an email writer. My position is rotational, so phone time is still required, but there are days where I'm not on the phones and do email instead. This has been a nice change to the work routine, but does slow up my knitting during the day (I know, no one feels for me). This week I've had little to no time to knit during the day and no time to knit in the evening, so I'm suffering from withdrawal.

This past Sunday, I started a new project, Rambling Rows Afghan, just to start working on my leftovers, getting that stash of leftover yarn down a bit. I think the whole thing might not be a thing of beauty whenever it is finished, but it would be mighty warm and that's the most important thing to me.

I also started a new sock for M2 out of the above sock yarn for the hand warmers. I'm ready to turn the heel now. If I ever finished picking up the stitches around the heel on my cat's paw lace sock, I could hopefully finish it soon. I'd really like to get back to my Monkey sock. It's so unusual for me to have 3 socks on the needles in various stages of finishing or not even started. Just not enough time to knit it all.

That's about it for now. Happy Valentine's Day to you all!