Little Knits

This winter, my knitting has been sporadic at best. I just managed to finish a few small projects and worked on and off on a larger one. The first small project that got completed was a vest for my seven-year-old. It was entirely a utility project as my daughter needed a warm underlayer to her winter clothes and I needed to use up some yarn that I quite disliked. So there it is.

The second small project was a pair of fingerless gloves for my daughter's friend. The design was selected by the recipient. This pair knit up quick and again used up some of my stash.

 The bigger project that is so near completion is a sweater for my eldest daughter. Hope to get it done this weekend and share it soon afterwards, in sha Allah.

I'm Back

This blog has been badly ignored, almost abandoned, for the last seven months. I have nothing better in the way of excuse other than that life got in the way.  I put away my needles for the summer and all the other crafts also took a back seat to my family obligations. The next few months are also going to be busy but I hope to put up a few posts now and then.
In knitting news, I only restarted knitting last month and have knitted only two pairs of fingerless gloves.

The first one was a DROPS design that I made on comission. I always enjoy colorwork so it was a breeze. Once it was done, I wanted to knit another.

This design was reverse-engineered from an pin on pinterest. It has some embroidery too, in the form of a flower an the back of the wrist, and I add some pearl beads for good measure. I guess my eldest daughter will be claiming this pair.

  In other news, my biggest project of the year (fourteen months to be exact), the dollhouse, is nearing completion. I just need to add a few minor things and take pictures.

  Other than that, our life has been most ordinary and routine, Alhamdulillah. The weather is slowly turning milder and I feel knitting beckoning me once more. Letvus see how much I can manage in the coming months.

Gloves

The past few months have been intense. Important family affairs took much of my attention, time and energy, so I had little to give to this blog. My crafts slowed down but did not halt, as I would be lost without them.

Coming to knitting, I got some comission work for the first time in my life. I used to dread knitting to someone else's specifications, but it was surprisingly pleasant. I knit some things, I would not normally knit and it was refreshing and fun.

As for the actual projects, these were fingerless gloves_ four pairs. The first was straightforward enough, a DROPS pattern which went fast and quick.

The other three I had to reverse-engineer from some photo the client sent me. There were two pairs of same design in different sizes.

The last one was unique in that main and contrasting colors were revesed for the two gloves of the pair and there were pompoms. Now while I know how to make pompoms, I have not had much practice. So it was an interesting experiment and I got them right in the second try.

Here is the completed comission in full. I am happy to report that it was well-received.

The glove saga does not end here, as last week, my son handed  me some yarn (he has some of his own, isn't that cool?) and asked me to make a pair for him. He drew out the design for me. This one was simple enough to knit, but six rows of duplicate stitch took almost three hours. He is well-pleased with his design.

Hopefully these are all the gloves for this season. I'm eager to work on something new and have just cast on a different kind of project.

Endpaper Mitts

Life has been very busy lately. March is the month of kids' final examinations. So on top of all the drudgery of routine housework, I also have to help them with their exams preparation. At the same time, I am also fighting a case of common cold. Not an ideal time for crafty pursuit, but colorwork made this project to interesting enough for me to make steady progress.

Modelled by my oldest daughter 

I had wanted to knit this pattern for a very long time.  The yarns are leftover Knit Picks Stroll Solids (barn red) and Knit Picks Stroll Tonal (Springtime).
I enjoyed colorwork so much, that I have cast on another project involving it. That is to be a tunic for my middle daughter. 

Upcycled Stashbuster Spirals Gloves

Five years ago, I made these socks for my son. Over time, these developed holes in the soles and went to languish in my mending basket.

I came upon them some days ago, while cleaning my craft space.They were beyond repair in the foot part, but the leg portions could be salvaged. So I unraveled both socks down to the first few inches and re-knit them up as finger-less gloves.

 

 My oldest daughter laid a claim to these gloves, right at the start. This project was a win thrice over; saving the yarn, freeing up some space and my daughter getting her promised pair of finger-less gloves.

Blackrose Wristlets and more

 I knit this pair of fingerless gloves from the same yarn I had used to make a wimple, a year back. Even the  smallest size was turning out too large, so I redid all the maths and thumb gussets and just used the lace chart from the pattern. These turned out beautifully and match my everyday scarf. And I still have more than enough yarn to make another pair...hm.

 

 Another project I recently did was a leaf edging (I took it out of this shawlette) for the yoke of my kameez (shirt), I plan to wear with my Muir shawl. 

 

Ribbed Fingerless Gloves

Life has been kind of busy lately and I have not been able to knit much , but I did complete this simple pair of fingerless gloves for my husband. The pattern is Jacoby, a free pattern by Berroco. I added  ten rows for the thumb.These knit up quickly and I am glad I found perfect use for a lonely leftover yarn ball.

Demise Of A WIP

NOTE: This post is not so serious or tragic as the name might imply.

How many times does it happen that in our dreams we get an idea, which seems like such a brilliant one, solution to all the evils facing us, nothing short of a Nobel prize-worthy discovery. Then we wake up and find it was all mumbo-jumbo or something really silly at best.
I think the same phenomenon occurred to me last night. However, I was not sleeping. Rather, I was trying to come up with a brilliant design in the wee hours of the night.
I had a skein of Noro Kureyon and I thought I could come up with a pair of good fingerless gloves. So, I gave it some thought and started knitting. It seemed so awesome at the time and I could not go to sleep until I had finished the first glove. So, I did just that, and it still looked very well, though my vision was a bit blurry by then as it was already Fijr (Time before dawn). That is when I hit the bed after saying my prayers.
Now, when I woke up a little later in the morning and showed it to the husband, he immediately squashed my enthusiasm, saying it was quite horrendous and came close to my second worst knitting disaster after the kitchen set I had knit a while back. ( My husband hates that dishcloth and we have already thrown out the scrubbie-required a lot of elbow grease).
Further explanation from him added insult to injury when he said he liked the yarn but the pattern was all wrong. He further suggested I knit "some bag" with it.
So discouraged, I frogged the glove and have started a bag already. But, I did take a picture before frogging. Maybe, some day, I will look back and agree that it is horrible..

Hands Warming

There are a few accessories I really love even if I don't get to use them as much as I would like, bags being one and gloves another. Now with the promise of winter in sight, I wanted to knit myself a pair of fingerless gloves. I also needed a break from my tangled yoke cardi.

The pattern is Bronte's Mitts and the yarn is Mystic Alpaca. No modifications in the pattern.
I can not wait to try out these gloves. These will go well with my winter scarf and abaya.

A Dyeing Adventure

Some months ago, I happened to find some discontinued undyed wool yarn at a local yarn shop. As wool is not available here any more, I got it with the idea of dyeing it myself.

I did just that last month. I used KoolAid to dye a full sweater worth. My first choice of color was a medium yellow but I did not have enough of that color sachets, so I chose red instead. I used all the red KoolAid and some blue and orange on top to get this shade. I tried some sprinkling for a little variegated effect.

I have already started with the sweater which is to be Tangled Yoke Cardigan. Again the color is hard to capture in indoor light but with the days being short, by the time I get around to shooting pics, its usually dark outside.

I ran into some trouble with the waist decreases but it was resolved, Alhamdollilah. However I have taken a couple of days break from this project to start a pair of fingerless gloves for mysef.

RAK fingerless gloves

Now that CrochetCupcake from RAK gorup at ravelry has received her package, I feel free to post a pciture of the gloves I made for her. I made these last month, took about three weeks to reach her in the US.

The yarn was 100% wool, a now discontinued local brand in natural color. I dyed it myself. This was my first experience with wool and the result was quite nice. The pattern was of Shawnee's own choice. I just modified the thumb gusset, starting the increases early and increasing on every third round.

While I was away...

I did not have time to do as much knitting and crochet as I would have liked over the past two months, however I did manage two FO's. The first one was a pair of fingerless gloves which turned out just ok but the yarn was some left over scrap and not so soft to touch. The pattern is a heavily modified version of some DROPS wrist warmers.
The second, I will mention in another post as I am still working on the pattern.