Not long after I posted the pictures of my finshed Liesl my mum sent me an email saying she really liked it and would like to have one. I offered to buy and send her a copy of the pattern. She replied that actually she wanted someone to knit her one. So I agreed to do it for Christmas.

So Mum’s not actually going to be surprised when she opens her christmas present (although if I manage to finish it and get it in the post on time, that will be unusual and quite a surprise!). I am trying to keep the yarn and colour a little bit of a secret though. If you’re on ravelry and want a sneak peak, click here.

The other new project I cast on for in the last week are Glenna’s 14 Karat socks. I haven’t been able to get a photo because I’m currently leaving for work in the dark and getting home in the dark. I might take my old camera to work with me tomorrow. I’m knitting the socks toe-up and decided to knit a plain toe. So far so good and the pattern is a great combination of interest and repetition. I’m coming up to the heel soon and will have to do a little bit of thinking there about how to fit it in.

I’ve also started a new spinning project. I’m planning a sock pattern for both handspun yarn and hand-dyed yarn. I’m spinning up some of my superwash merino/seacell to use. I did a little test skein at the guild meeting on Saturday to make sure I got the thickness of the singles right for the yarn I want.

This is the colouway I’m spinning – ‘Scarpantoni’

And so far it looks like this

Pattern: Warmest Mittens by Kris Percival

Yarn: Handspun Natural Dye Studio Halo BFL (2-ply construction)

Needle: 3.75mm interchangeable

Mods: None

These were quick and satisfying to knit. They really only took a couple of days. The yarn fluffed up a lot and a little uneven and probably varied between DK and Aran. So the fabric on 3.75mm needles is fairly dense which hopefully will keep the wind out.

The decreases aren’t particularly neat but I’m really not bothered. The yarn graduated from purple at one end to blue at the other which caused the non-matching mittens. I cast on the first one with blue then changed to purple to try to even them up a bit.

I wore them this morning and this evening for my commute (train-bus-walk & waiting in between) and they kept my fingers nice and toasty. I’ll be sad to put away my endpaper mitts, but they just don’t keep my fingers warm.

I have two new projects, one of which has a photo from this past weekend so I’ll try to post about that in the next day or two.

Pattern: Quickset Socks by me. (Pattern being written up and available for free soon)

Yarn: The Thylacine Mawson Sock yarn in ‘Quickset’

Needle: 2.75mm Knitpicks/knitpro circular

This pattern was the antidote to my post-pomatomus brain-fry. I knit them in less than two weeks – although not on time for my mother-in-law’s birthday.

I designed the colourway specifically for her. She loves royal/ultramarine blue.

The lace pattern goes all the way up the front of the foot and leg, and starts on the back above the heel. They’re knit toe up.

I’ll hopefully have the pattern written up in the next week or so.