Fabulous February

Ah, I love February. Christmas is done; the Christmas ornaments, decorations and tree are packed away (we hope) and we can get on with the serious business of enjoying winter. Finally, here in Wisconsin, we have snow on the ground, bright blue cold skies, and serious winter temperatures of 0 Farenheit at night and in the single digits during the daytime. Snow crunches underfoot and all the knitted hats and scarves come out of the closets!!! My daughters leave the house wrapped in items I made for them. It warms a mother's heart.

My Komi mittens, from Charlene Schurch's book Knitting Marvelous Mittens are finished, felted and on my hands keeping them warm!!! In my previous post, I proudly showed how I had inverted the color design on the palm of the mitten, just for fun. I blithely did the same on the second mitten, but forgot to watch for the thumb placement. Rats!!! Pay attention, Gail!!! Oh well, no one notices that my mittens are different for each hand and I kind of like the "joke". I love looking at the difference in the patterns on each hand. I also made a matching earwarmer/headband using the Mountain Colors yarn. Today ears need to be covered to avoid frost bite.
I just purchased a new computer--a MacBook laptop. I love it, but am still getting used to the programs. I thought I had adjusted colors and turned all the photos to be right side up, but when I went to load them onto Blogger, I only found the original photos to upload. The colors in the mittens should be brighter and they should be standing up. But, you can get the idea, I hope.

I am also having a great time designing a blanket for one of the twins expected soon by my daughter's choir director. My daughter is 15 and she has been singing with this director since she was 4 years old!! I made the first blanket in October; it is Debbi Bliss' Alphabet Blanket that you can view here. I used Pinguoin Mousse that I had in my stash from decades ago. Because the yarn was discontinued, I couldn't purchase any more of it for the second blanket. Then, I searched on E-Bay and found some Mousse in another color--a bright turquoise type blue!. Perfect!! The twins are boys.
I am using the Pinwheel Blanket pattern as a base. Because this blanket has ten segments, I decided to put the numerals from 1-10 into it. I didn't have time to figure out how to match the lace alphabet letters, so I am doing the numerals in reverse stockinette stitch. Great fun.
Here is the chart I made for the numbers.
And here's the blanket thus far. (whoops, don't know what happened with the coding, but since the photos are there, I won't worry!!)
catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsDG-oZ8SR_IuVX1AJHFDCI4Cqx-K0hgL_lBdoH4tyJk0wGswKwrg86y5Bs4mGT29v-rEVlmLTspE00-taMvv0XYJPAXQIf3Oo6717wEZuyePgM01_lOzfKmBqEthbi73OFefF-Q/s1600-h/102_1632.JPG">I know, lit looks like a great big tam at this point. But, if you look carefully at the knitting closest to the needles (on the middle left) you can see the beginnings of a number!! I don't know if the twins (boys) will ever read the alphabet letters and numbers on their blankets, but I know the mom will.

As if I don't have enough to do already with my three courses (Spanish Advanced Grammar, Instructional Design and Technology and Children's Literature) and my family knitting projects, I started a blanket for our church auction. Ten of us are knitting squares for the blanket out of Cascade 220 using colors that "match" our church building; the building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and is a National Historic Landmark. We are making diagonal squares and will assemble them along the lines of Tikkupetto's blankets. Check her design #44. Here's my first square--at least half of it!! We hope the finished project is fabulous that that we sell lots of raffle tickets for it!!



And, not last but least, is this lonely sock from one of Lucy Neatby's patterns--the Marietta sock. I love Lucy Neatby's sock patterns, and all of her patterns. But they do require some attention with the brain and not just the fingers. I'm not sure when I will have time to knit this sock's mate. I long to have both socks on my feet, but will have to wait until I have time to knit for myself again. First, I have to finish that pinwheel number blanket, then the Dale of Norway sweater for husband. I hope it will still be cold outside when I finish that second sock!!