Warm Winter Woolens

We've had quite the rude reminder - with temps in the mid 30s and wind and rain - that summer is over, fall is really here and hard behind that will be winter.  Ick.  I hate winter.  Oh, I like the pretty snow at Christmas and a sunny day with snow on the ground and frosted trees can be beautiful, but I've never been able to withstand cold well so I dread the long, dark cold season.  From December to late March my usual outside attire is thermal undershirt, wool sweater or heavy sweatshirt, thermal sweat pants, insulated ski pants over the sweats, fleece vest, quilted jacket, heavy insulated winter coat with hood, knit hat (sometimes with a thermal snood under it), 2 pairs of gloves, 2 pairs of socks and thermal Muck brand boots.  And I still get cold unless I'm moving the whole time.  Andy even carries a second pair of gloves for me inside his shirt where they stay warm and halfway through chores when my hands go numb we swap so I can finish.  I even get cold in the house when it's a very reasonable 68 degrees.  At 70 I feel pretty good and that's where Andy starts to sweat, so we have a magic 2 degree window where we're both comfy.  Some days, when the temps are low enough and the wind is blowing hard enough it's just not possible to get parts of the house warm enough for me.  Then I wear a shrug and fingerless mitts.  I have some very humble ones that I made myself, but I've been recently blessed by good friends with (as Snapple puts it) Better Stuff!

Amy gifted me with this LaLa Shawl at the Fiber Fest in September.  It's some of my dyed Cotswold lamb and silk called Forget Me Not which I'm currently out of but hope to make more of soon.

Back view

I like to roll the collar area for extra warmth over the back of my neck and it stays on my shoulders well that way, too.

Front, with shawl pin, also from Stone Edge Fibers

Along with the sample baby garments she knit to showcase my Cotswold yarn, Caroline also made a pair of mittens which I neglected to blog about.  Bad Robin.

Worsted weight singles yarn

And before that, our spinning guild held a "hand covering exchange" in which all participants put unspun fiber in a bag, the bags were shuffled, and each person took a bag with the direction to make a pair of mittens/gloves/mitts/muffs/whatever and at the end of the designated time they would be returned to the original owner magically made into something nice.  Wouldn't you know, out of 40-some participants Caroline got my fiber.  We got a sneak peek at our items at a guild meeting, then they were all whisked away to be held until the fiber fest when they would become an awesome guild display.  But when that was over, they became mine, mine, mine!

Backs

Palms

Beautiful things, made by friends.  My heart is already warm.







Desperate Times....

....call for desperate measures.

It's 8 PM Friday night.  The mittens for tomorrow's guild exchange are still wet from washing.  It's raining out, and too humid in the house to dry.  I still need to add an embellishment to the finished (which means 'dry') mittens.  Something must be done.  (Something other than having finished them earlier, that is.)

MacGyver would be proud

The nerd in me is amused that I figured out a way to get them dry in about 15 minutes. 

A pair....wait...geez, they still aren't identical

OK, despite a practice pair of mittens that preceeded them, I have still managed to 1. have them turn out differently in color, and 2. have thumbs and tops that aren't quite shaped the same.  On the upside, the cuffs are more 'cuffy' than the first pair, and they are both about the same girth.  Despite the fact that I frequently held the 4 dpns with as much finesse as a drunken monkey I really think that I could muddle through another pair without having to refer to the pattern.  Thank you, Genesee Valley Handspinners Guild, you forced me to learn something!  (Not that they forced me - they aren't like that at all, they are all very nice people who would never publicly shame you for non-participation....   I mean, I volunteered for the project, but they did provide the spur to encourage me to make the effort).

Beads!  Click to biggify.

And lookie here....I even embellished!  Oh yeah, I'm runnin' with the big dogs now.

Behold......

.........another first..... Mittens!

Mittens.....after a fashion



So why am I motivated to make mittens in April?  (Besides the fact that most of April has been in the 40s ?).  My spinning guild,  Genesee Valley Handspinners Guild, does "exchanges" every year- scarves, hats, and this year Hand Coverings.  It seemed like a good idea when I signed up last fall.  The fiber I got to spin was lovely and that part got done in just a couple of weeks.  But...... I wasn't about to fool around with that nice yarn making attempt after attempt to produce mittens, so practice was in order.  I pulled some of my handspun yarn from the stash and borrowed "Folk Mittens" from the guild library.  How hard could it be?  Sure, I think, give me a book and I can figure anything out.  I picked what I thought was the simplest pattern, with the least complicated type of thumb.  Under the heading "Mittens from Greenland and America" was a lovely pair of white mittens.  Nice, plain design that would show off the yarn nicely and they had the classic mitten shape I wanted - not square and pointy on the tip of the fingers, or with a thumb lying flat against the palm, beautiful though that style can be. 

So here is the result.  A pair of mittens..... which are more fraternal twins than identical twins.  One mitten is definately bigger boned than the other, which is weird since it's the same yarn, same needles, same number stitches, and I don't *think* I'm manic-depressive enough to knit tight some days and loose another.  So.  I pretty much understand the construction of these things (and can find all the mistakes I made and there are many) , but they don't have the same sex appeal as the the mittens in the picture.  OK, these are wool and those are angora, but seriously... the picture in the book has slim, sophisticated mittens.......the Audrey Hepburn of mittens.  My mittens are more Gilda Radner.  And what's up with the yellow thumb??  That's what I get for going back to pick up the thumb stitches after the variegated yarn has moved on in its life to that shade.

One of these things is not like the other......

The "real" mittens are due May 14th. 

I'm hoping to work my way up to Jamie Lee Curtis style.