FO: Ampergrabbers

The ampergrabbers are done!

(click for bigger)

And just in time, too. I finished them last night and wove in all the ends this morning. I was running out of time because I'm leaving tomorrow, and I certainly didn't want to leave my sister stranded with just one glove, looking all King of Pop-ish, you know? You just don't do that to someone you love. Anyway, they're done, they look cute, and she loves them! Yay! Everyone's a winner!

Yarn - 1 skein of Mama Llama self-striping sock yarn (100% superwash wool, 430 yards) in the Earth colorway from Kpixie. It's a colorway that's really grown on me. My first imprssion was that it was a bit too Christmas-y with all the red and green. My next impression was that it was too brown. But, actually, that burnt orange color is a deeply saturated gold. And the red and geen are these lovely jewel tones. The yarn has a lot of lustern and depth to it.

Needles - set of 5 size 1 bamboo dpns. I think they're clover, but I'm not sure. I was a bit worried about using them because I have freakishly strng man-hands that tend to bend flimsy wooden needles. They're all a little bowed out now, but still usable.

Pattern - I knit them cuff to fingers and made it up as I went along. I don't even have notes! Basically, I ripped of the Jaywalker pattern for the chevron and ripped off the ribbing on the sides from the Ampersand pattern. I made the thumb gusset by scanning the directions from the peeakboo mittens pattern, and increased in a 1x1 rib. For the fingers, I used 1/4 of the existing stitches plus 3 that I cast on over the gaps (I picked up stitches from the cast on edge for the adjacent finger).

Seriously, the construction is super-simple and intuitive. I did most of the knitting in movie theaters and on planes, so it's totally zombie-riffic. I'm pretty sure I'll end up making a bunch more pairs for me and everyone I know.

PS - see the flower in the top picture? That's a magnolia from the tree outside our living room window. I adore magonlias and they're one of the things I miss most about Texas. Sadly, they're not yet in full bloom, and I'm leaving before I'll get to see them in all their splendor.

I'm still alive!

Hey everybody! I'm still alive, and I'm in Houston! I finally convinced my mom to get high-speed internet, so I thought I'd drop y'all a line.

Well, truth be told, we used to have it, and then my sister's computer broke, like, 2 years ago, but nobody ever called a technician to fix it or work it so that the family computer could get in on the high-speed action. But, we were still paying for it. My family rolls like that.

Anyway, it's getting late and I have to watch The Last Unicorn with m sister and her friend, so I'll be brief. Progress has been made on the ampergrabbers!

This s the first pair of gloves I've made, and they're actually quite fun. I've only made afterthought thumbs, so I decided to make this a learning experience and worked a gusset instead. I did hit a pitfall, though.

See how the middle fingers are tiny? Well, I knit them the same length as the outer fingers, but they turned out all stumpy. After far too much head-scratching, I figured out that it's the biasing that's doing it, so I picked out the bound off edge and kept knitting until they all matched. See?

Actually, if you look closely at that picture, you'll notice that the glove is being modelled not big my gigantic blond boyfriend, but my adorable younger (though older-looking) sister. That's because Jon was wrong (as I suspected) about the glove being big enough to fit his giant catcher mitts. But they fit Leila's fine! HA!

Ok. That's all for now. I do have stories (knitting and non-knitting related) to tell you. I'll just say that this has been a wacky month.