I finished my challenge. It’s funny how during these past two weeks I’ve wondered 1) why I chose such an easy challenge, and 2) OMG HOW AM I EVER GOING TO FINISH THIS IS TOO MUCH KNITTING TO DO IN SUCH A SHORT TIME PERIOD WITH ALL OF LIFE’S OTHER COMMITMENTS AND PRIORITIES. Yeah.

Actually, the hardest thing was getting everyone on board for the group picture. But I have a tripod! And a remote! So it wasn’t that bad. The kids like the one with the cat.

And I like the close up shot, even if it is out of focus.

When we did this in 2008, I had my little point and shoot camera balancing on a pile of things on top of the picnic table. It’s really a miracle that this picture exists at all. But I love it, and I’m glad we have an updated family picture. Nothing like a superbowl knitting challenge to bring us together in front of the camera.

My mitts were the last ones that I knit and I finished them yesterday morning. I was so angry at the weather for raining and therefore extending the time required for them to dry after blocking. But I am glad I blocked them because holy wow, Ultra Alpaca knit at such a tight gauge needed to be blocked.

All that’s left is to watch the game! GO GIANTS!

With Maggie’s Mitts finished, and looking pretty cute, I must say, that leaves just one pair left. Mine. I have a vague plan, but I have not cast on. The end of this week is busy with all sorts of activities both important (school! homework!) and fanciful (trips to IKEA!). I will finish this challenge, but it might be close is all I’m saying. Please wish me luck.

My Maggie was really upset when we had a little photo shoot for the mitts and I kept telling her how to pose. “Why do you always decide how I stand?” she complained. So I let her stand how she wanted, but it wasn’t really working out seeing as she was holding her hands behind her back. So we went inside to her room, which is the prettiest room in the afternoon sunlight. Anyway. There’s pics of the mitts, but also pictures of my Maggie when she stopped being so upset about “posing”.

I finished up Jerry’s fingerless mitts yesterday, and after a good blocking, they look great and he loves them. This kid has been asking for fingerless mitts for ages, and I am glad he finally has a pair.

For a few days this week I wondered why I was doing this again, wondered if I even wanted to be doing it, wondered if I would finish. But with just a few hours of dedicated knitting time (and some choice documentaries on Netlix Instant*) I am confident I can pull this challenge off and confident the Giants will win.

*Page One and Exit Through the Gift Shop, both good

Maggie has half a pair of mitts, almost, and then I just need to knit a pair for myself. I can totally do this.

Yay Giants!

Clockwise from top left (for ease, all fingerless or wrist items are referred to as mittens for now):

A few of my own design samples: 4 pairs (8 mittens)
Failed design that I am still trying to work out: 2 pairs + 1 (5 mittens)
Samples from The Red Collection: 7 pairs (14 mittens)
The Worst Pile – Mittens with no comrades: no pairs (11 mittens)
Bag of pulsewarmers in various stages of completion: 4 pairs (8 mittens/not really but whatevs)
Mittens and gloves that live in the Mitten Bin and get used: 6 pairs (12 mittens)
The Best Pile – Baby Maggie mittens: 3 pairs (6 mittens)
Other people’s patterns that don’t get much wear anymore: 3 pairs (6 mittens)
Gifted mittens (from my sister and from Elinor): 2 pairs (4 mittens)

The math says that’s 31 pairs of mittens and 74 mittens total.

Like yesterday, I can only assume there are some mittens in my house that I cannot locate, and I know of at least one mitten on the pins. There are probably more half-knit mittens that I have hidden in a bag and stashed away somewhere deep.

I took another picture from the side, to show the extreme height of some of these piles.

Here’s a confession: I actually think I need more mittens. But more specifically, I think I need more mittens that fit the kids. Assuming it snows (and some years it doesn’t) the kids go out to play for 20 minutes, come in for hot chocolate, then want to go back out. But their mittens are then WET AND COLD. So they need at least two pairs each, and three would be better!

Okay, writing that last paragraph made me feel slightly insane. But I’ll probably knit more mittens anyway. I HAVE A PROBLEM.

On the other hand, the other categories (sweaters, socks, scarves, shawls) are totally under control. No really.

Today I did get all the knitting out, but it seems reasonable to just blog about hats today. The number of mittens is obscene and they deserve their own day to shine. Here are all the hats that live in my house that I could locate:

From top left, clockwise.

My self-published designs: 9
Self-published in The Red Collection: 13
Elizabeth Zimmermann hats: 5
Hats for which designs should appear eventually: 5
My designs published elsewhere: 4
Hats under surveillance for moths (in the plastic bag): 1
Improvised hats with no patterns: 9
Hats I keep, but were not made by me: 2 (more about these below)
Knit from other people’s patterns: 16

If my math is correct, that’s 64 hats on the table.

According to what’s been recorded in Ravelry, there are 2 hats not pictured that should be (one is in Gerald’s work truck, one is missing). I have knit 15 hats that were given as gifts, donations or samples.

I have at least 3 hats that are currently on the needles.

There’s gotta be plenty more that I don’t have a record of that are hiding in the house, or given away pre-Ravelry, or who knows what.

I like knitting hats.

About the two pictured above that I didn’t knit: The pink one is the one Maggie wore home from the hospital when she was born. It is handknit and had the world’s saddest pompom. The brown and orange one is from J.Crew. I borrowed/stole it from a guy I once knew in college. I’ve lost touch with him, but he was one of the coolest and most fun guys I ever had the pleasure of knowing. I keep the hat to remember him, and because it looks really good on me.

Warning: Tomorrow is mittens, and there are a lot.

After being used frequently last winter, my Fiddlehead Mittens were looking very ragged. They’re knit with Cascade 220 and handspun and they are so pilly! I went through the wool basket this morning and found a few other mittens and mitts that were also in need of some pill maintenance.

My Girdwood Mittens in Cascade Eco:

The Mallory Mitts knit with Nature Spun Sport:

And my Zigzag Study Hall Mitts knit in Reynolds Whiskey:

My method of dealing with pills is to snip them off carefully with scissors. If you have read The Knitter’s Book of Yarn by Clara Parkes, then you know that for many fibers, pulling the pills off will only lead to more pills. By snipping the pills off with scissors (or a sweater shaver if you have one) you leave the surrounding fibers undisturbed. Clara discusses it much more eloquently in the book – it’s on pages 64-65 if you own the book. Read it again, it’s worth it.

After snapping my “before” pictures, I did some careful snipping.

The Fiddlehead Mittens look dramatically different after their haircut!

Nice, right? It just takes a few minutes of attention, plus some vacuuming, and my raggedy mitts and mittens look like new again!

It was 29 degrees out at the bus stop this morning! I brought the wool basket down, gathered some of the recently finished knits and everyone bundled up against the cold. The newest item being worn was the Noro Scarf that I was working on a few days ago. I blocked it yesterday, and because my room gets super warm with the door closed at night, it was dry this morning!

More info about the Scarf for Jerry on Ravelry. When Jerry comes home today I’ll have to weigh the yarn to see how much was used. The yarn was a gift and already wound into balls, so I’m not sure of the exact yardage. If I had to guess it would be maybe 3 skeins?

Jerry is also wearing his new Asheboro Hat.  The mittens are the Girdwood Mittens in Cascade 220 knit in the Big Kid size. Remember the Girdwood Mittens? The pattern comes in all sizes and would be a quick knit for Christmas gifts! Just sayin!

If you’re wondering about the way he’s posing in this picture, he was being a robot. It has something to do with Looney Tunes I think.

And now for Maggie’s ensemble! She beats Jerry by one point because she is wearing a hand knit coat!

The coat is the recently completed Tomten. Yesterday was a cold morning, too, so I put her Tomten out where she could see it and told her it was cold. I don’t want to force her to wear the knitting, but I want to make sure she remembers that it’s an option. And yesterday she chose to wear the knitted coat! I was so happy.

Like Jerry, Maggie (doing robot moves) is also wearing Girdwood Mittens and her Asheboro Hat.  Her mittens are undocumented on the blog and Ravelry because they were a Girdwood prototype. She loves them, but the mittens are…imperfect. Luckily for us Maggie is like the honey badger. She don’t give a shit that her mittens don’t match.

The scarf that Maggie is wearing is a simple lengthwise garter stitch scarf knit with glorious Baby Alpaca Grande. On Raverly, it says I finished this almost exactly 2 years ago! Imagine that.

So maybe Maggie is not technically all wooled up, but partially alpaca-ed up. Even better!

I feel like a real ass. Yesterday I mentioned that I looked all over for that one needle. And I swear I did. I took every needle out of the bag where I keep the 16″ circulars and measured them with my needle gauge, and didn’t find the size 5. I looked in project bags, in desk drawers, and places that needles are never kept. Later I was back in the circular needle bag looking for a size 4 needle, and you know where this is heading. I found the size 5! So frustrating.

Usually I don’t have much trouble with my needles (which makes this whole episode that much more annoying). After 8 years of knitting, I think my system is finally at a place that I like and that is manageable. I don’t own a ton of needles; many of the larger needles were bought in the year that I began knitting. And then I slowly acquired all the other sizes. Sure, I buy needles occasionally and I have plenty of duplicates, but I try to avoid buying any more if I can.

Since organizing my craft area back in February, I have been very diligent about keeping things in their places. My needles all live in that little basket shown in  the picture at the top. The basket lives on the shelf of my craft area (though not pictured in the link, the shelf’s contents have evolved over time to suit me). Without further ado, here are the contents of the basket!

First, the case that holds the most used needles: DPNs in sizes 000 to 4.

This case was on sale at the yarn store when I bought it, and I think it’s intended for crochet hooks. But it fits my DPNs, even the 8″ ones, perfectly. The top folds down so the needles can’t fall out very easily (NB: They can fall out, I assure you. It is never pretty.)

I also use my circular needles a lot.

These gallon ziplock bags have been in use for years! As you can see, there is one bag for the 16 inchers, one for the 24s and one labeled just “longer”. Although yesterday’s trouble began with this bag, the system usually works, even if it takes a few minutes to sort through to find the needle I’m looking for.

I also have a needle case that I made a long time ago.

Up until I got the case that holds my small DPNs above, this red case was actually used to hold all sizes of needles.  It never worked well because it was always too full. Now that I’ve transitioned the small needles to the other case, this one works great for the larger size needles, 5s to 15s. The straight needles are all 9″ long. When I use straight needles I prefer these to the longer ones.

But I do own longer straight needles! I just don’t knit with them.

Some of these were gifted to me by family and the others were bought at thrift stores. I can’t help myself when I see old knitting needles at the thrift store. I am compelled to bring them home with me! They live on the shelf, but are rarely, if ever, used. If I ever teach knitting to kids again I will probably use these needles, but in the meantime I just enjoy having them around.

In the basket is also a ziplock bag for my crochet hooks.

It seems an obscene number of hooks considering how little time I actually spend crocheting. But at least I’m prepared whenever I feel like a quickie crochet project!

So those are my needles! As I’m continually reminded, it is not a fail safe system. Usually every couple of months I still have a big needle round up; I go through project bags and find all the forgotten needles and put them away. But it works better than any system I’ve tried since I began knitting, and that makes me happy.

I was reminded this morning that the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid came out today. Every two weeks I get a Photojojo Time Capsule. I don’t even remember when I signed up for that email, but it’s fun to see what I was up to a year ago. Today’s time capsule included a photo of Jerry from November 9th, 2010 with the new book I had bought for him. Below is another shot from that day.

From one year ago.

I made sure he still wanted the book, and went to the store to get the new one today. He’s already finished reading it, of course. They’re simple books and I guess he’s a pretty fast reader. But this series will always have a special place in my heart because it made him a reader. Instead of forcing him to read, now we’ve got to force him to put the book down and go to bed at bedtime.

In my Time Capsule there was also a picture of my purple Fiddlehead Mittens!

I love these so hard! They’re not mine anymore, but they belong to a knitter’s daughter so I can only assume they’re loved and respected.

In terms of current knitting, I’m working on another hat pattern. It requires a needle that I can’t find, so it’s on hold until I can either a) find the needle or b) get myself to the yarn store. How much you wanna bet I’ll end up at the yarn store tomorrow? I also have some background knitting; knitting that requires absolutely no attention whatsoever. Usually my background knitting is socks but I accidentally cast on for a scarf the other day, so I’ll knit on it until it’s done. The yarn is Noro Iro and was a gift from the knitter who’s daughter is the owner of the Fiddleheads.

The scarf has 20 stitches and I’m working in 1×1 ribbing, slipping the first stitch knitwise on every row. I’m technically making it for Jerry, who may or may not wear a scarf, I have no idea. But if it snows we’ll be ready!

I’ve decided to call it the Asheboro Hat, in honor of that city down the road where I’ll be attending school come next year. I’ll be spending a lot of time in Asheboro! I’m so excited.

I know I’ve said it already, but the Asheboro Hat is a great knit. Perfect if you’re just starting with colorwork! And if you’re experienced with two-color knitting, you can knit this hat in a day or two.

We love our new hats! The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn knit at 5.5 sts/inch. I knit ours in Brooklyn Tweed Shelter. It’s  a great yarn for colorwork, and when you block the hat it’s softer than you can imagine! The Child size can will use one skein of Shelter, plus about 20 yards of a contrasting color. For the Adult Medium and Adult Large, you’ll need two skeins of Shelter for the main color.

For more pattern details, and to queue, fave or purchase the pattern, please visit the Asheboro Hat page on Ravelry. And because I’m so excited to be releasing a new pattern, through the month of November the pattern will be available for just $3! Woohoo! You’ll see the discount when you add the pattern to your cart. Or if you’re ready to buy it right this instant, use the link below.

Asheboro Hat – $3 for a limited time only

Thanks so much, everyone! First for reading, but also for the support!