Girl on the Rocks

Mittens are the new socks June 4, 2008

Mark my words, mittens are going to be huge soon. As a knitting project, they have all of the versatility and satisfying features as socks. Colorwork, textures, a variety of increase and decrease methods, thumb shaping (analogous to heel of toe shaping)…. And you can use them to try to make a dent in your sock yarn stash.

Patterns I have been eyeing (Most links are Ravelry links – sorry. The waiting list is only 2 days long – hurry up and join):

- Anything from the Selbuvotter book ($24.95)

For example, NHM #9:

Or NHM #10:

Order this directly from the author like I did. It arrives quickly!

-Okka By from Randi K. Design ($7)

Her chart for a tiny little knitting village in Norway captures an amazing amount of detail. I am also impressed with the little crab that pops up on the other side…

All of her designs are amazing, so be sure to check out her etsy shop.

- Baske by Nicole Hindes ($6)
Simple enough for a beginner, but truly gorgeous! I love the yellow color that she chose.

- Hello Yarn’s amazing fiddlehead mittens. ($5.95)




I saved this for last cause I have big plans for this one. Adrian makes kits of hand-dyed yarn to go with the knitting pattern. As far as I can tell, it would be impossible for me to ever score one of those rare gems. I love her suggestion of using something for the outside that is durable and has a little mohair in it… So I am challenging myself to dye and spin all of the yarn that I will need for this project. Truly ambitious, I know, but I give myself until this winter to get it done. Wish me luck!

Look what I adopted June 2, 2008

Following a hot tip (tweet, actually) from sockpr0n, I was able to snap up this little fella for not too much dough.

It is an 8 inch wide Clemes and Clemes drum carder. I am particularly enamored by the fact that Clemes and Clemes is literally up the street from me, so it is like the drum carder is coming back home. It is certainly well loved, and it arrived with one of the wooden gears cracked and broken. I was able to not only wood glue that back together, but eventually replace it with a stronger acrylic piece and get down to business…

I have been very satisfied with the batts I have purchased from Hobbledehoy and Stickyfingers on etsy. But in general I want a batt to have a blend of different types of fibers and not contain any sparkle and/or angelina. I’m not in it just for the colors; I have some specific textures in mind. Because of this I have been coveting drum carders for some time now (in fact nearly exactly one year), but they just haven’t been in my budget. So as soon as my little carder was running, I made a tiny batt of merino and mohair that resulted in this:

It was pure fun to spin…..
Next, I was FINALLY able to add camel down to some merino (I have had this camel down lying in wait for YEARS).

I am also excited to use it to process some of the fleeces I have piling up. It has done an awesome job with all of the Romney that I fed it:

More fun blends to come – I am ready to try a little colored fiber experimentation…