For those of you curious about these things, here's how eleven hours of traveling breaks down into fingerless gloves:

0:00, some Rowan Felted Tweed. Yum, yum.

2:06, Indianapolis airport

4:50, Minneapolis/St. Paul airport

11:02, in the car somewhere between Seattle and Sammamish

By the time I'd reached my final destination, I'd executed a tubular bind-off on glove number one and begun the ribbing on glove number two. So almost, but not quite, finished. Not too bad, right?

Especially since the project made my flying time about one thousand times more enjoyable. Delayed plane? No problem! More knitting time for me. Sullen, silent seatmate who makes me move so that he can use the lav. three times on a three hour flight and puts the armrest up so that he can encroach on my space while he snores? No biggie. My knitting keeps me sane.

And deadline knitting (even the self-imposed type) is great for steering you clear of those sleepy pockets that exist only on airplanes. You know...the ones that make you take accidental naps from which you wake with a buzzy head and toxic breath. So even though I didn't quite get to the end of the project, I AM A WINNER!!! Yes indeed.

Posted by Elli at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (23)

The Specs:
-Pattern: Knucks, by Pamela Grossman.
-Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed
-Skeins: Less than one skein (35g) of shade 143.
-Needles: size 4 dpns (size 3 for ribbing).
-Start to finish: July 8 - July 22
-For: Me (still the summer of knitting for me...)

Notes: I made the men's size (just call me Elli of the huge hands) and they fit pretty well...maybe a little largish, but then I didn't think about the potential usefulness of negative ease in gloves. If I were to make another pair, I would probably go down a needle size.

The Pattern: Top down fingerless gloves. Brilliant.

Mods: I shortened them a bit by skipping a few of the plain knit rounds near the end of the thumb decreases. I also left off the embroidery (I know, boring...but I want to wear these at work. If I were to embroider something on them it would be "I'm cold” as that’s how I feel ALL WINTER).

Final Verdict: We loves them. Yes indeed.

P.S. All this planning ahead for winter is making me think about Christmas knitting already. Don’t hate me.

P.P.S. Is it just me, or are my pinkies abnormally short?

Posted by Elli at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Heh. It's been a week since I last posted. Anybody else feel like their summer is passing at warp speed? Here's what I've been up to:

Knucks:

Yeah I know...weird name. But if you can get past that, they're pretty awesome. Every winter at work I just about lose my fingers to frostbite but I’m always way too busy with the xmos knitting to knit myself any F-less Gs. So when I saw the pattern in the new Knitty I jumped on it. I'm all about doing things early this year. If that isn't enough to impress you, I'm using the required yarn (rowan felted tweed) which I already had in my stash thanks to the generosity of the v. wunnerful Angela.

River:

I have the pattern mostly memorized, I've made my peace with the KSH, and I’m one-third of the way finished already...all is right with the world.

New Yarn! (Installment 1):

I’ve been pretty good about not accumulating too much new yarn this year, but I’ve been slipping lately. The first of it is eight skeins of Briggs and Young Regal, from Schoolhouse Press, for the Saddle Shoulder Aran Cardi pattern I bought last spring to make for the Thunkster. This was going to be his Christmas sweater, but then I just bought some more yarn today for a completely different “Christmas sweater". Not sure how that will work out. Let's just say I'm not having any trouble finding cute manpatterns lately.

That's it for now. I'm going to go eat toast now.

Posted by Elli at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)