I’ve been working on the Endpaper Mitts. I cast on last Saturday and finished the ribbing over the weekend. I started the colour-work on Wednesday at the Stitch ’n’ Bitch and last night I finished the first repeat... Theylook cute already!
 
This is a challenging project but I’m learning a lot along the way. My hands are getting used to the stranded colour-work and it went a lot faster last night than it did on Wednesday - I suppose sitting by myself without any distractions helped too. I’m getting into a rhythm a little faster each time I sit down to work on these. The pattern is simple and predictable so I don’t have to check the chart too often and it is easy to catch my mistakes.

 

Today I created order from chaos. Today I turned an unruly mass of movies, cds, games, books, pens, change, paper, letters and dust into a clean and tidy bookshelf of easy to find media. There is a special kind of pride that comes with the completion of this sortof task and I feel a little glow every time I see the bookshelf.
 
This was made even better because I had not planned on doing a bunch of extra cleaning today but when I started to look for a bit of material for a project (check back later) I realized that this was the perfect day to tackle a large mess. I was home by myself and had nothing particular to do until lunch time so there weren’t any distractions. It also meant spending most of the morning in the sunny room which was nice.
 
The picture above is not our new bookshelf; it’s my first bit of stranded colour work. I felt it was a nice representation of order from something that seemed pretty chaotic when I started. This is actually my third attempt at the swatch for the Endpaper Mitts and I am finally getting into a rhythm knitting with yarn in both hands. My stitches are becoming more even and I am making them a little faster than before. It’s very satisfying to see the pattern emerge after a few rows.

 

 

This is my vacation shopping yarn stash! I went down to Edmonton with a bunch of patterns and some vague ideas for colours and walked into River City Yarns , which had been particularly recommended to me by somefriends. The ladies at the shop were very nice and helped me find appropriate yarns for all my projects. I had three of the skeins I bought wound into balls at the shop so I can use them right away. I’m a little proud of myself for buying only one skein that is not designated for a specific project but actually true stash yarn for some future idea. There were so many wonderful yarns that it was difficult to pick only a few. My only disappointment was not to find any spindles but, as Rob said yesterday on our flight back, there is no way I’d have managed to fit a spindle into out bags anyway.

Here are my yarns:

First, Rob helped me pick out two nearly solid shades of Socks that Rock - Lightweight for the Endpaper Mitts pattern by Eunny Jang. The top colour is “Beryl” and the bottom is “Jasper”.

Sticking with Socks that Rock I chose a mediumweight in “Rolling Stone” for the Purl Beret .

And then a heavyweight in “Rose Quartz” for the Cabled Fingerless pattern. The blue skein in behind the pink is “Midsummer Night” and was just to pretty to pass up - my official stash yarn.

I got one ball of Rowan Calmer in “Powder Puff” (Shade 482) to make up Twinkletoes from the last issue of Knitty.


Three balls of Noro Kureyon are for the Booga Bag Pattern which I printed off ages ago but didn’t have yarn for.

Finally, there are three skeins of Manos del Uruguay in “Mallard” to become a scarf for Rob.

I had to get needles for several of my new projects too so I now have a slightly fuller needle collection.