Wovember

Textisles

Straight from Scotland to you...Wool and November rolled into Wovember!  Because it's cold out and wool is warm :) As a knitter I love wool.  It's great for coats and skirts, too.  And makes the best socks ever!

Plus it's environmentally friendly, sustainable, and sturdy.  Support your local sheep.

As an aside: most wool is processed in China, so check the source of your yarn.  Yarn shops carry local yarn, very nice yarns.  Good fleece spun well will wear longer and better.

Remembrance

Today is Veteran's Day in the US.  I'm always mindful and grateful for the friends and family who fought, and continue to fight, to keep us safe.  This is not a day to think about motivations for war, but about the men and women who are uprooted, placed in danger, and do not always come home.
Thank you.

Coincidence

Last night I pulled out some sheet music, thinking that I should play my piano keyboard more often.  Of course more than none doesn't take much effort ;)

Today a neighbor with a real piano was playing Moonlight Sonata.  My mom used to play it and it's one of my favorite pieces.  Then, just now, the neighbor started playing ragtime.  Which is funny because the top piece of music I pulled out last night was Scott Joplin, the most famous ragtime composer.  I remember it being pretty technically challenging, though, and was amused when I heard the neighbor thump the keyboard in frustration.

Angora Oops

The first mitten is coming along well, except the contrast pattern looked awful.  I chose a new pattern and am reknitting just the pattern stitches instead of undoing everything.

 I didn't take pictures of the first pattern, it was too dark last night.  I reknit most of the new pattern before bed and have only two rows left today!  This may seem like a ridiculous amount of effort, but it's really less work in the end.  Ripping out patterned double knit is quite tedious.

First Pattern (aka The Blob)

New Pattern

The star points were too stubby to show up well.  The new pattern is theoretically four hearts but I choose to see it as a vaguely flower-shaped design ;)








The new pattern looks quite nice.  It takes some fiddling to even out the tension on each row, but not too bad.

New pattern, mitten exterior

Angora-lined Mittens

Outer layer

It's starting to feel like winter here.  I remembered some merino wool and angora I had socked away...and decided to make angora-lined mittens.  They should keep my hands nice and warm all winter :)

I'm double knitting them, since it's cool.  You knit two layers of fabric at once using two balls of yarn.  Patterns can be made if you use different colored yarn.  The outer layer is purple merino, the inner white angora.  There will be a snowflake on the back of the hand.  So far I'm to the thumb (the triangley bit on the side).

I'm making my own pattern and being quite clever about it, if I say so myself.  The angora is slightly thicker so I'm using a few less stitches of it, so the inner layer fits inside well.

The easier way to make these would be to knit two separate mittens, joined at the wrist, and stick one inside the other.  But this is much more interesting, and I can knit patterns!

Inner layer, and yarn