Nutkins and Chilly Podsters

Now that I'm back in the swing of knitting, it seems like I suddenly have so much to do.  I've got a bunch of projects that need to get done at some point, though nothing is knitting on a deadline, so that's fantastic.  I guess I could count one thing as "gift knitting," but seeing as the recipient already has two knitted gifts already, I don't think it'll be horrible if I don't get the third and fourth promised projects finished in time.

However, the first thing that needs to be talked about are a the Zombie ViXen fingerless gloves I started, oh, forever ago.  This is the first project I've put in long term hibernation for stupid reasons for a long time.  These are being modeled by Bear, because no one else's hands were available.

So why did these things get put on hold for a while?  It's really silly.  I didn't want to go back and do the thumbs.  When Chesh tried on my gloves he decided everything fit, but the thumbs were on the tight side.  We batted around some ideas, but I decided it was just too much effort and I would worry about it later.  This is generally my philosophy on knitting.

So when I saw these sitting in the stack of things to do, with a groan, I pulled them out and realized if I didn't get them done, I never would.  So I got them done.  I sized the needles up to a US 2, hoping that would solve the size problem, then I picked up all the stitches on the waste yarn.  The larger needles were kind of a bad idea.  The stitches didn't want to get picked up onto larger needles.  I probably should have picked them up on the smaller needles, then knit onto them with the larger ones, but hindsight and all of that.  In the end they got finished and fit perfectly, so who am I to complain?  One gift down and done, only a couple more to go.

Next on the list are my ill-fated Nutkin socks.  Let me tell you, these are not my favorite socks in the world.  The toe is a really lose fabric so I'm tempted to rip out the toe and start all over again.  Truth be told, that's a lot of work, and I think you saw above my philosophy on work. In spite of the straight cast on and the straight stitches, the sock still wants to twist on my leg.  That's going to annoy me.  Still, I've cast on the second sock.  We'll see how they work out.  Worst case scenario I can always pull off the toes on both of them and redo them in a smaller gauge.  Best case scenario, I just don't care and leave it.  Then again, I've noticed even superwash yarns seem to fluff up and get a little more snug after a few washings.  Maybe that will be the case here and I'll be glad I didn't fix it.

I've got to say, I don't think it's entirely the fault of the pattern.  This yarn is such a fine yarn that it's really loose on the larger needles.  I could have kept it on smaller needles and added more width to each pattern, but I thought this would be better.  Then again, the loose weave may be really nice if I can get some sock liners to wear under them to keep my feet warm.  We'll see how they work out when I'm finally wearing them.  At the very least, I've found a yarn I don't like working with as much for socks.  I think the heavier sock yarns suit me better, which is good to know for the future.

And finally, it's time to talk about the Chilly Podsters.  These were chosen because they're the only free pattern for convertible mittens that has both mitten caps for the fingers and for the thumb.  This means it's easier to do things like pull out money, write, or get a card from a wallet without having to take gloves off.  It's a practical thing.  The original request was made when the recipient was still a smoker, but now that he no longer is, they're still practical and useful.  This will be the first set of mittens I've ever made in any fashion.

Thus far I've managed the cast on and to get all the way through the ribbing.  It's been easy going to this point.  I know it's going to get more complicated when it's time to break down for the fingers for the glove portion.  It'll be easy enough to do the mitten portion, I should think.  It looks like it's pretty much little hats that go over your fingers.  That should be pretty simple.  I'd like to think this will be another quick project to knit up and not another that I'll decide to hibernate because the individual fingers are so much work.

I'm pretty excited for this project.  It's the first of it's kind that I'm doing.  I was finding myself getting bored with knitting because it seemed like there were no fantastic challenges left for me, aside from tackling a sweater.  I still mean to do that, but it's going to take some time to get to it.  I've got a good stash to work one up, but I just haven't had the ambition.  I think I need to start doing some searches for patterns I like and just go for it already.  I should probably get myself a new tape measure so I can bust out some measurements to get an accurate fit.  I'll get there.  It's just going to take some time.