FO: Mittens for Afghans; Charity Knitting

It started to feel a little pointless to work on one more pair of wool socks for myself, with summer coming soon. I mean, it's good TV knitting and all, but who has time for much TV with a baby on the way?

I looked up charity knitting on Ravelry and found that handmade items often don't make it to their intended recipients. Afghans for Afghans, however, kept coming up as an organization that handles this well.

Because it gets quite cold in Afghanistan, and because washing machines are rare, Afghans for Afghans asks for wool items rather than cotton, acrylic, etc. So I mined my stash for wool and found some ball ends of Noro Kureyon. I used a kid-size mitten pattern from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. It was fun to try to make non-identical but still matching mittens. Here's the result:



Mittens knit up delightfully quickly. Good stuff. These were done in perhaps 4 hours total.

This has me thinking about other charity knitting or craft projects. More locally, there's Project Linus, which collects handmade blankets for kids staying in hospitals for extended periods. They take crocheted, knitted, tie-quilted, and other blankets. Different requirements to learn (more emphasis on softness and washability than warmth), but this is a project that could be fun with a group of crafty friends, knitting squares to join, or tying a quilt together.

On the parenting side, my 3-year-old DD has lots of questions about who is getting these mittens. It's a good chance to provide some information about poverty and war, and to try to do it in an age-appropriate manner that educates without overly alarming. This is part of what makes me think about Project Linus -- it would be a chance to see more directly, or even participate in, giving to others we don't know who are in need.

Breaking Out (FO: handspun mittens)

No baby yet, but I had a nice stretch of pre-labor last night, and today I'm 38 weeks, 6 days. Woo hoo! Today I had what I hope was my last prenatal visit to the midwife. Everything looks good. Next stop: acupuncturist, to see what we can do to get my body ready to roll. Medical induction isn't really likely to be an option for me because I had a C-section before, and they don't like to produce extra-intense uterine contractions in women with uterine scars. Fine with me: the mortality rate in cases of uterine rupture is high for me and higher for the baby, so I'll stick with the 1-in-200 (or better, depending on whom you ask) rupture rate with no medical induction. But that means if I don't go by 42 weeks or pretty darned close, it's another C-section for me. So let's go, kid. Time to break out of there. I know you're ready!

Here are a couple more photos of knitted stuff. I recently finished these mittens for me, which are made from my first wheel-spun yarn:



You may recognize the yarn from an earlier post: It's 2/3 brown Corriedale, 1/3 white Lincoln fleece. I like the way it knitted up. These mittens aren't as windproof as my fleece gloves from REI, but they're not bad, being quite firmly knitted, and the sizing is great. I used the mitten pattern from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. I've also made mittens for DD from this book. I can't say enough good things about it, especially if you're knitting from handspun or otherwise wanting to flout the yarn recommendations in patterns more often than you're wanting to follow them. You just knit up a gauge swatch on a size needle that makes a fabric you enjoy, then use the multi-gauge, multi-size tables to produce the garment you want. I've also done a hat for DD from this book, substituting a fluffy brioche stitch pattern from a Barbara Walker treasury, and it worked great. I hardly ever knit from patterns that require a specific gauge anymore. Ann Budd, Jacqueline Fee, and Elizabeth Zimmermann have helped me build the courage to innovate, redesign, tweak, and otherwise break out of the blind-follower knitting role.

Oh, and Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. Will I ever knit socks again without adapting them to her techniques? Not so sure about that. My current project is a pair of plain stockinette socks in Trekking XXL. I'll probably do K2, P2 ribbing for the leg. Definitely TV/waiting room knitting:



They never look like much at this stage, but ah, the fit when they're done! I love 'em.

Oh, and these are my first project on my new KnitPicks metal sock needles. I got tired of shredding my bamboo DPNs -- because I'm such a tight knitter on socks, and especially when knitting yarns with cotton in them -- and I've been on a DPN (versus magic loop/2 circular needles) kick for speed and probably nostalgia reasons. So these seemed like the right next step. I got a set of 5 DPNs in each of six sizes (0, 1, 1+, 2, 2+, 3, where each is 0.25 mm bigger diameter than the one before) for Christmas from my dad. I'm doing these on the 1+ needles. I swatched on 1s, and going to 1+ felt like knitting with tree trunks after that, which was nice -- I'm trying to resist knitting at a gauge of more than 10 stitches per inch!

The KnitPicks needles are very pointy, which makes me a little prone to poking holes in myself with them as I knit. But I figure that poking myself that hard has to be a bad habit, so every time I knit something with KP needles, I go a little farther toward breaking the habit. I love how slick and fast they are, how warm they feel (just like Addis), and how little they cost. I'm looking forward to trying the Harmony wood version of the DPNs (thanks, Dad!) on a future project and seeing if they hold up to my death-grip tension better than the Takumi bamboo needles I've destroyed before.

FOs: Shining Violet Sweater, Menschkin Baby Blanket

Long time no blog! I've been busily preparing for DS's arrival (due any day now), getting our taxes done, and so on. But part of the preparation has been finishing some knitted items!

For DS, there's the Menschkin Baby Blanket. This is an original pattern -- I unvented the border and hope to post a pattern for it sometime soon. It took a lot of experimentation to get it to lie flat (neither folding over nor puckering) and have no holes to snag tiny fingers. The corners are a little hit-and-miss depending on what I tried at each, but I'm pretty pleased with it. Here's the whole blanket after a wash and light block:



And here's a close-up of my favorite corner:



You can see the miters, which I did using k1-through-front-and-back to give the blanket a bit more texture. I used that a lot in the border, too. The yarn for this project is KnitPicks' Swish Superwash (100% superwash wool) in worsted weight. I love how soft it knitted up and how nicely it washed (front loader, in large lingerie bag, dried flat). So DS will have something nice and snuggly to bundle up in when he chooses to make his appearance!

I wanted DD to have something new, too, so I finished up her Shining Violet sweater, in KnitPicks' Shine Sport (cotton/modal blend), color violet. Here's the whole thing after a wash and block - it got kind of creased in the washing-machine spin cycle, and since I didn't put it in the dryer (though that is okay for this yarn), it stayed a little creased.



And here's a detail of the dear little strawberry buttons DD helped me pick out for it:



The details of how to make this sweater are aggregated in a past post, here, in case you'd like to try it out. DD hasn't let me photograph her in it yet, but she loves to wear it. It fits her slim 4T-or-so body great with either nothing or a small shirt underneath. I tried for more growing room, but it didn't work out that way.

That's all for now -- perhaps more soul-searching text on motherhood another time, but for now, actual motherhood calls, as DD is up from her nap. Ta ta...