Family and Some Long Awaited FOs

     Here goes two blog posts in one day!  Oh my.  I thought the bootie tutorial should stand on its own.  I've been up to no good like normal and I have some FOs.  First off, the over shrunken oven mitt was a no go.  It was too small for my recipient so I'll be knitting and felting another one.  This time I'll be checking the washing machine every couple of minutes.  As far as the little one goes, it does fit my hand, so I may just keep it for myself since I had originally intended to do that. 

I think it may have something to do with my color placement.  It seems that the darker blue felts more than the lighter blue.  See how the thumb stayed large compare to the cuff and palm.  I've heard people warn that different colors of the same yarn can do this.  Now, I've seen it for myself.  Live and learn.

     I finished up the six large white dishcloths for my co-worker for her son.  She was very excited when I gave them to her.  She also mentioned that her mother was using one of the ones she had gotten from me previously.  That's always nice for a knitter to hear.

I thought knitting white dishcloths was going to be tedious and boring.  I spread it out so it was actually kinda fun.  I personally don't like cloths this large, but I have small hands.  I wouldn't be opposed to knitting more of this size in the future.

 Don't they look snazzy.  I used up almost all my millends making these, which is good since I still have a whole cone of white yarn.

     I actually did some seaming.  I had four round dishcloths sitting around.  I wanted to give one of them to my Grandmother so I finished all four like a good little knitter.  (Well, I did that instead of going to bed.) 

I made sure to get the TV in the background... that may be Robert Picardo on the screen but it wasn't Voyager. ;)  Give ya 10 points if you can guess which episode that was.  Anyway they went from that to this:

I was attempting to use some scraps on the two on the bottom and right.  I ran out of the pinky purple with just a few rows to go on the one with white in it.  The dark purple stripe in the one with yellow is more running out of yarn.  It you don't focus on the colors, they're kind of cute.  The solid purple one has a mate and that's the yarn I picked up while we were in Lowville.  Those two cloths went to my grandmother. 

     On Saturday I visited my paternal grandmother.  She's in her eighties now, she still drives, lives independently and crafts probably more than I do, if you can believe that.  There was a pretty bad cold front going to move through the area, the hubs and I wanted to get back to the city before the front/storm hit the 81 corridor so I had about an hour to spend with her.  I could have spent the whole day.  I had my phone with me so I showed her what I could with my Stitch app.  She didn't know I did that much knitting.  So far I've only given her dishcloths, so how could she.  We got to talking and wound up "pattern swapping" at least as much as we could.  I told her about Ravelry, turns out she has been really wanting to get a computer so she can get patterns off the Internet herself.  I'm going to take my binders full of patterns up with me next time I go so we can do some proper pattern swapping.  Before I left, grandma gave me one of those large single needles that is for crocheting broom stitch lace.  She had three, I've been wanting to delve into some more crochet at some point, so that will be nice to have around.  All in all, it was a great time.  I wish it could have been longer!  Before we left my parents I made sure to "borrow" a few of my Mom's old tiny crochet hooks.  I took the smallest three since the size in mm wasn't printed on them.  I'm hoping one of them is small enough for me to do bead work.  I'll have to take a picture of my "new" tools.  The storm moved through the area ahead of schedule, about two hours ahead to be specific.  We ended up driving though the front.  It wasn't bad at all.  We hit just a small patch of really heavy rain.  Its really too bad since its quite dry op here.  Many farmers are already cutting corn since its already dying.  Its going to be a rough fall, the price of milk is very low and crops are dismal from the lack of rain.  There will be many farms going under this winter if the milk prices don't improve...  oops there I go rambling.

     So, before this weekend, I got another pair of mittens done.  These will be going with the striped ones to Norwood Norfolk Central School.

I think this shows off the Amazing better than the Camp Out Mitts.  This pattern was Warmest Mittens again just with the Amazing.  Its starting to grow on me a little bit.  I love the little yellow stripe the ended up in both the mittens, it ties them together nicely.  I need to get both the pairs in the mail.  Deadline in Sept. 30.  The mitten campaign will go on next year too.  Hopefully I can get more than two pairs done.

     When I noticed I had a bunch of scraps accumulating again I decided to start another cotton scrap pot holder.  This is the pattern I use for them:  Double Thick Diagonal Potholder.  More on that when I finish it.  Until then, Happy Crafting! 

On a side note, I dont usually go on about the badges I earn for Nerd Wars.  They're the equivelent of trophies or medals.  I got this one and I'm really proud of it.

I completed all the challenges!  All 18 of them, 6 in each round of the tournamnet.  Its the first time I did that, so I'm really happy.

-Q