The mittens I actually started a long time ago. I designed them to match my Cherry Garcia Neck Tube, which I knitted last March on the beach in Florida. It's the same delicious purple bulky Ironstone yarn I used before. I finished the mittens while I was in Ohio, with the frigid weather providing plenty of inspiration.
The hat I made very quickly this weekend. It's a much-altered version of the three-cornered hat from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac. I started with her pattern, then used a less bulky yarn (Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride in Tahiti Teal), then decided I didn't want it three-cornered, then softened the edges. So basically, er, it's not her hat at all. It's sort of a little mushroom cap that can be mooshed into several shapes. It still needs to have the bumps blocked out of it, but I'm already very fond of it.
I have now begun swatching for the Pippi Kneestockings in Stitch 'n' Bitch. I'm really hoping that my tendency to knit tightly will mean that my size 3 and 4 Addi Turbos will suffice, and that I won't have to buy a 2.
So here's where I admit that I've signed up for something spectacularly geeky this coming Saturday. It's an all-night "knit-in" at my local yarn store. I think I am going to need one or two additional projects to work on in order to keep my interest for 15 hours. What do you think they ought to be? The s.o. would love more socks and hats--he is a most grateful patron of the fiber arts--and I am thinking of making myself a striped nightcap. Or I could start a sweater for myself, although I don't really feel like shelling out the $$$ for the yarn right now. Hmm...
