Heat Wave

Our summer is finally here in San Francisco and I am sweltering. The perfect time to finish languishing mittens, no?


These are Snow Chains Mittens designed by my friend Jessica. I started them way back in January or February, I think.

Last week I finished this stole. The pattern is called Fairy Leaves, by the pooling genius, Gladys We. She has come up with quite a few projects that allow you force variegated yarn to pool into orderly stripes. It took two days of swatching for me to get the right stitch count to use this Shaeffer Anne yarn. And then it took forever to knit, including ripping out several inches in a moving vehicle with no lifeline.


This knit tulips were for K.'s teacher. She taught them a Japanese song about tulips, red, yellow, and white.


I see I have not posted any finished items since January, so here goes. Click to see photos a little bigger.

Here's the Lopi sweater I made for Ed. He was so impressed he keeps telling people it looks like it was bought in Iceland.


This is Prepared for Vancouver, which I knit for charity.

I made more Lopi felted bags.

And this felted handbag....


...and a Citron Shawl to wear to May's San Francisco Ravelry meet-up, which was organized by two of my friends.


This is a hand spun and hand knit hat, which went to my former mother-in-law.

These are my crazy clown socks, knit from some Koigu, Cherry Tree Hill, and rainbow Serenity Garden.

Finally, Bohus socks, which I adore to no end. The cuffs were the class project in Susanna Hanson's Stitches West class. The foot is Berroco Ultra Alpaca that I bought at the show with my Webs gift certificate. Toasty.


At the end of the class everyone laid out their wristlets.


The whole not buying yarn thing is going well. I haven't used up a ton of stash because I keep picking long projects. But it has not been a hardship, especially since I got several yarn gifts. I love shopping for yarn, but it is also fun to get creative with what I have.

Another challenge is to use up all the yarn I got from our knitting group's stash exchange. That's where I got the yarn for the pooling stole and blue handbag. I've got three more projects to go.