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That’s right. I made ‘em!

I couldn’t find a pattern that I loved that used worsted weight yarn and size 8 needles, so I made one up - or rather, I took parts from two different patterns and put them together.

The wrist ribbing, I took from Stay-Put Baby Mittens - since they were sized for around 18 months and Gwen’s 16 months (when did that happen?). I loved the twisted rib stitch and the length of the ribbing for little hands, so I cast 24 stitches onto my size 8 dpns and away I went!

The actual hand of the mitten, I took from Dulaan Easy-On Mittens, which feature an extra-wide thumb-hole (um, the first mitten I made with a regular thumb hole? Good luck getting THAT thing on a toddler!) and are non-hand specific, which I liked. So after my 3 inches of twisted ribbing, I increased to 28 stitches and switched patterns. Instead of a 12-stitch thumb opening, however, I did an 8-stitch opening since these mittens were sized for a child with a 7″ hand circumference … which Gwen’s is NOT.

I then embroidered one mitten with a flower to match the embroidery on the hat I made, and knitted a length of i-cord to link the two mittens together. (I-cord? Fun. And easy!) Eh, voila! Mittens for the wee one. These aren’t the warmest mittens on the face of the planet, but they’re just perfect for cool mornings and an outing to the park. I’m hoping to make her a winter-weight hat & mitten set shortly!

I finally knit Gwen something. It makes me feel terrible to say that I’ve knit things in the last two years and none of them have been for my own daughter! But alas, I really hadn’t found anything that was quite right to knit for my beautiful baby girl. Read the rest of this entry »

Wow. A knitting-related post. Have you picked your jaw off the floor yet?

I thought I’d go back and write about my last finished object. I have a good reason for not writing about it right when I finished.

See the belly in that picture? I finished this puppy on June 11, 2008. The day I went into labour. For scale, you can see my iPod Mini in the right corner. I’m standing on my bed trying to get a full picture of it and you can *barely* see the left edge. (Oh. And I love that you can see my sexy support hose. Oh baby, oh baby!)

I don’t remember very many details about this project. It is a prayer shawl for my Aunt Connie, who was, at the time, undergoing some very intensive chemotherapy for breast cancer.

It’s basically a big, purple hug.

Her favourite colour was purple, so I found a beautiful purple variegated cotton yarn, a fun novelty yarn, and a nice white yarn - Rowan All Seasons Cotton. The middle piece is double knit with the purple variegated and the novelty yarn, whereas the arm portions are some sort of patterned ribbin which I can’t remember.

To be fair, this was 7 months and a lifetime ago.

I knit most of it with my feet up on the couch or sitting on my bed listening to a LibriVox recordings of Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island, by L.M. Mongomery, timing Braxton-Hicks contractions that were coming every 5 - 7 minutes, and waiting for June Bug to arrive.

She was obviously waiting for me to finish this before she came.