The last two weeks

For the last two weeks, I abandoned all (both) my projects to work on something different. The Teeny Tiny Government Entity has a charity drive every year and this year, instead of canned food, they went for hats, gloves, mittens, and scarves for a local domestic violence shelter. So the first thing I did was go on a yarn crawl. The second thing I did was fix The Man's new Liverpool FC sweater which he had just taken out of the package and put on and worn happily for no more than five minutes when The Paw of Demand took a swipe at him and he ended up with this:



Only I fixed it and it looks a lot better now.

The third thing I did was cast on a ribbed scarf from some new yarn. The fourth thing I did was dig through Ye Olde Yarne to see if I had anything I could use to make hats, gloves, mittens, and scarves for kids and adults. The fifth thing I did was set myself a ridiculous and unrealistic goal, and the sixth thing I did was knit a frenzy of hats, mittens, and scarves. No gloves. Gloves are a pain.


At the end of the two weeks, which is only about 4% of the knitting year, I had these new yarn items (plus one more pair of mittens I finished after the photo shoot):



and these Ye Olde Yarne mittens.

Now I have the mitten pattern memorized. Did you know that if you knit mittens at a slightly tighter gauge than you would ordinarily use for that particular yarn, you will end up with a thicker, denser, and warmer mitten? Well, you will.

The trip through the stash was a worthwhile exercise. I got it a little more organized--now all the Cascade 220 is together and all the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran is together and all the little odd bits have been identified and categorized so I have a better idea of what there is. I had three little mini-balls of leftover green JelliBeenz that became one pair of mittens, and leftover Debbie Bliss in green, white, and black that became mittens. See what I did there? I used up six whole leftover balls of Ye Olde Yarne! I cannot tell you how satisfying that was. Upshot: I got to use up Ye Olde Yarne, I got to go on a yarn crawl, I got to spend two weeks whipping through small projects and actually finishing things in less than a month, I got to knit (don't forget that--knitting is pretty much the high point of my existence right now), and because I got to do all of those selfish fun things that I would happily do anyway for no particular reason, some kids will have warm hands this winter.

How it got its name

So we have your Hawaii mini-socks,

and your fair isle hat,

but that's not you came here to see, is it?

Does any one know what this means?:

If you guessed, fringe, you are correct. If you correctly identified Bunny's Little Helpers at top right and bottom right by their distinctive markings, then extra points for you.

And so the knitting part is finally finished, and the fringe is cut and divvied up, and I start to workin' on it, but The Man sends me to bed because I am full of snot and he thinks that putting fringe on a throw looks strenuous. So I don't finish until Sunday. But I do finish.

Pretty pretty pretty pretty! And you can see why it's called Absolutely Fabulous.

This is not a stronger-than-dirt machine washable green blankie. This is a hand-wash, be gentle throw. I need to protect it from The Boys, but I don't want to put it under glass either.