Who Are You....

...And what have you done with Rochelle. That's what a friend of mine said last week when I showed her all the colour knitting books I bought. Why? Because I hated colour knitting. I tried it about 15 years ago and I couldn't stand it. Then the fiddlehead mittens came my way and I knew I had to knit them. So I took a class at The Purple Purl and voila. Here are my completed Fiddleheads and I've already started my second colour project.

In case anyone noticed, the colour sequence is opposite to the one I did in the first mitten. When I finished the second mitten I realized the gauge was totally different from the first so I ripped the first mitten and knit a third one. I like it reversed better. It's what I had originally planned but I messed up when I started knitting after the cast on and knit the colour squares with the dark and the white squares with the lavendar. These are now the way I intended them to be. The dark are lavendar and the light are the purple. It took a little getting used to but I finally was able to get the hang of it.

I am having a lot of fun with this colour knitting and that totally surprises me. Now I have to try and knit colour socks but I think that will be a little ways off.

Almost There

I'm close to finishing my Knitting Olympics challenge. I was getting a little worried that I wouldn't finish on time but, despite having to rip over 4 inches on the first sock of the 2nd pair when I realized I had 56 sts insted of 60, I am almost done with the 2nd pair. Once these are done I only have one child pair for a size 2 shoe to complete.


Saturday I had the 2nd and final Fiddlehead mitten class at The Purple Purl. I still have to do the lining but here it is with the thumb complete. When I do the second mitten I am going to do the gusset increases with m1 by picking up the loop between the stitches instead of doing a backward loop onto the needle. I think it's going to give me a much neater result. I'm so anal that if it works I'm actually thinking of either redoing this mitt or giving the mitts away. I bought a Tanis kit for this in purples and after the knitting olympics I intend to knit the 2nd mitt and another pair using the yarn from the kit.

I've decided to change the yarn I'm going to use for my Miko challenge. If you need a reminder of what it's all about you can see it here. When I ordered this yarn from elann.com last week I thought it was a little lighter. On their site it's called dusty wine. To me this looks more like a dusty pink but I like the colour and I think it will work much better than the cotton I had started with. Now I just have to begin all over again. The first month is almost over and I have 91 samples to knit. I should get it done but I'm anxious to get started when the olympic knitting is out of the way.

Surprisingly, I Think I Like This

Instead of working on the Knitting Olympcs socks I need to finish, last night at Snb I worked on the Fiddlehead mitten instead. I finished the first mitt except for the lining and thumb. I'm going to put it aside for now until the class on Saturday when we are shown how to pick up the stitches for the lining. I really like the way they are working up and it's a fun knit. I can't even believe I just typed that since colour knitting was so taboo for me. I think when I go back for the second class on Saturday I am going to get a kit for another pair.

Why Can't I Be Monogamous...

You'd think with me trying to get a gold medal in the Knitting Olympics I would be monogamous and only working on the stuff I need to get done by the closing ceremonies. That's not the case right now. So here's the knitting I did yesterday.

I am now past the thumb gusset and I might even get to the end of this mitten, minus the actual thumb, by the next class on Saturday.

I must really be enjoying knitting these mittens because I am seriously considering getting the kit and doing it in all the different colour. I'm also starting to look at coloured knitting a little differently. Now THAT'S scary. Anyone who knows me and my knitting will attest to that.

I am just about to start the ribbing on the first sock and should have this one done today. Then I'll cast on for the second sock. My goal for today is to get past the toe.

Finally, yesterday the February clue came out for the 2010 Lace KALendar. There is a choice of hard love or sweet love. The hard love pattern has a pattern row on every row. The sweet love has resting rows on the wrong side except for the faggoting section. I've never done the hearts this way so I decided to do the hard love. I'm still debating if I want to do one repeat of the sweet love after I do a few more repeats of these hearts. Sadly the lighting is very bad today and the colour is really off.

Tomorrow it's back to work so not as much knitting will get done. However, it's also Snb night so I'll be up later than I usual am on a weeknight since I won't be home to fall asleep in the chair.

Fiddleheads

Yesterday I went to The Purple Purl and took my first class for the Fiddlehead Mittens. I tried taking a colour knitting class many years ago and I hated it. I decided that colour knitting just wasn't for me and gave up. Then I saw the Fiddleheads and I had to make them so I decided to give it another go. After some bumps along the way with the yarn choices (I decided not to do the kit), I finally was back to knitting. The yarn is Mission Falls in purple and lavender and I love the way this is working out. The colour knitting is not as difficult as I remember. I suppose part of that is because I taught myself to knit English style and even though I'm still not very good at it, it works well with stranded knitting. I'm just about to start the thumb gusset and couldn't be more pleased. I hope I continue to feel this way. Kate Atherley is a great teacher and I highly recommend taking one of her classes if you ever get the chance. Now I can't wait to take her math for knitters, designing socks, and finishing classes.

Friday night I cast on the socks for Shayna. I just started the gusset for the heel and hope to get that done today. Despite my dislike of her yarn colour choice I love the way the colours are knitting up. I know Shayna likes the yarn. Now I hope she likes the way they look once they're all done.