Evenstar Mitts Done and Knitty Thoughts

No pics, sorry! But, I finished my Evenstar Mitts. While watching The Notebook on tv, I zoomed through the rest of mitt #2. What a fun cable pattern! It kept me interested, and I was able to do the mitts entirely in combined knitting. These days, I've been doing lots of combined knitting due to the projects I've been working on. Anything with a mixture of knits and purls... Anyway, I soaked my mitts in Kookaburra. So, they smell wonderful and are ready to be worn :-) Of the 3 hanks of grey alpaca yarn I have, I only had to use one plus a smidge of a second hank. That means I can make a beret or slouchy hat to go along with the mitts - yay! Now, I'm also considering what hat and mitts to make with my beige alpaca yarn... BTW, here's a pic of the alpacas from which my yarn comes:

Sometimes, I just can't wait to cast on some projects. This particular time, it was a little pair of copycat socks using my leftover Stroll Handpainted in the Lullaby colorway: I'm making Marie a pair of Lullaby socks to match mine. Since I don't know how much yarn I'll have for the leg, I'm making them toe-up. Using the numbers from MSKS and incorporating a gusset/heel turn/flap, they should look nearly the same. I say nearly because I think I'll do eye of partridge on the flap rather than heel stitch. It'll be fun to work out how to mimic the 2-stitch garter edge while making sure to use the outside stitches to eat up the gusset increases. BTW, for the first time ever, I like how the toes look! Normally, I'm dissatisfied with toe-up standard or round toes thanks to the unevenness in half of the increases when doing 2xML (2aat magic loop). I did a Turkish CO --for kicks, of course, since I normally do the Magic CO-- and then did a standard toe using kfb so that the bar is one stitch inside each edge. Somehow I managed to keep the increases at the beginning of side 2 on each sock from being loose. I didn't do anything different in tensioning my edges, so go figure!

Besides casting on Marie's socks, I've also been working on Ian's Vestee top. For some reason, it's taking longer than usual. Probably because, instead of being mindless like I thought, I'm actually having to pay attention every other round when doing the [k2, p1] part of the seeded rib pattern. Not a lot of fun so far, this project.

Winter '09 Knitty is up! I like the drawn in, ribbed waists of Spoke and Zora. Mr. Darcy is a keeper, as well as Bitterroot with its beautiful stitch pattern and beads. Vroom is cute, and I could totally see Ian wearing that. It's been fun looking at the sock patterns. Just recently on Ravelry, in disecting toe-up heel turns, someone had mentioned there existing some sock patterns that do a W&T heel turn without increases (followed by a fixed flap). Saviano from this issue of Knitty does just that. I've done the kind where you stop short of doing all the gusset increases because you do increases on the W&T heel turn ( a la Wendyknits slipstitch heel). I wonder which I'd like better: increases or no increases on the heel turn? I've done the heel extension method where you pick up stitches to make a horseshoe right before doing the heel flap. But, I haven't done the Fleegle heel or Wendyknits' gusset heel which both skip the heel turn and don't have a fixed set of flap stitches. They look enticingly easy and very similar, but I'm not sure if I'd like the look of the back or sides of the heel since it's not perpendicular and fixed like a traditional flap. OK, OK... I'll quit blathering on about the technicals of toe-up sock heels!

Today Marie had her last day of preschool before the break. Her class put on a really cute Christmas program for the parents. It was hilarious seeing 4-year-olds trying to sing and move in unison. Some kids just stood there smiling and frozen rather than participating. ...Uh oh, my 2.5 hours of peace will be missing until January 4th!