Christmas knitting

Here’s a short list of the knitting I’m packing for my Christmas vacation.

-Another pair of Mitered Mittens

-Coraline

-Deep In The Forest Mittens

My mom has picked out a bunch of sock yarn and put in an order for some socks.

And Mr. NotCharles has a Dickey coming to him, whose yarn has yet to show itself to me. I’m thinking it’s living in Toronto, which is where I’m off to next.

Today and tomorrow I’ll be putting together project bags, making sure I have the right needles and all the pattern bits (books and printed PDFs) I need for each one.

Oh yeah, and I’ll also be packing enough clothes and things for a whole month, plus presents for my whole family.

I’m already thinking I’ll need a bigger suitcase.

lost in the forest

I’ve started the Deep In The Forest mittens three times now. Check out the huge gauge I was getting on 2.75mm needles.

I moved down to 2.25mm, back to 2.75 and then finally to a different set of 2.25 circular needles. Then last night, I ripped out most of the work I did yesterday (about eight rows of colorwork past the cuff) because the stranding on the sides was pulling in significantly and there was no way of fixing it without starting over.

I’ve never really done colorwork before, and it doesn’t strike me as something that’s impossibly difficult. In fact, I’m even managing to hold the different colors in different hands. It was awkward at first, but I picked it up quickly enough. I’m still not sure how to stop the sides from pulling in though. The whole thing is getting really frustrating. I just want pretty mittens now!

It’s suddenly unseasonably cold here, so I took the time to weave in the ends and seam up the armpits of my still zipperless 28Thirty yesterday. It was freezing inside the apartment, but hot coffee and Lamb’s Pride works wonders. My sweater may never get a zipper (I know my limits). It’s still pretty warm without it, it’s just not the outdoor fall jacket I first envisioned.

I also made it to 40,000 words with my NaNoWriMo novel last night. The goal of 50,000 is just within sight and I can absolutely make it there, hopefully by this weekend if I push myself. My rage at the awfulness of a certain vampire movie that has just been released is all the motivation I need to fill my 75 page Word document with 25 or so more pages of sheer awesomeness. It’s like turning bitter disappointment into sweet, sweet lemonade!

forest mittens and holiday plans

Since last week Mr. NotCharles and I suddenly gained a whole whack of Holiday travel plans. We’re going to be going in two different directions and visiting a whole lot of cities, including Toronto, New York & Philly, with everywhere in between. I haven’t been back to the states since Christmas of 2007, so I’m pretty excited about this trip, even if it means having to lug a whole lot of presents around, both given and received.

And then there’s the knitting. I’ll have to bring a lot of that. I’m planning on making these Deep In Forest Mittens.

I’m not the type of person who buys pay patterns right after she sees them. Usually my knitting is a bit more long winded than that. I plan things out and then get around to making them eventually. If I do see a pattern I really want to make I usually buy it right before casting on. However, when I first saw the pattern for the Forest Mittens I knew I needed to buy it immediately. I’ve been wanting to make colorwork mittens for a while now, and I find that a lot of them have motifs that are a bit too cutesy, or just generally unappealing (another exception would be the Galileo Mittens, which I also really like).

But I totally have a thing for tree branches, especially bare ones, especially with the night sky as a backdrop, so these mittens were a no brainer. They are totally me. I bought some O-Wool 2-Ply the other day in shades of navy and chocolate. Casting on is my carrot for writing 3,000 words for NaNoWriMo today.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, it’s going better than I ever imagined. To write 50,000 words in 30 days you generally have to keep a pace of 1,667 words a day. On weekdays I usually write that, though depending on the day it’s sometimes only half that. Yesterday I moved my goal up from staying four days ahead to five days ahead. This is a great cushion that I haven’t really needed to use. Yesterday was only the 15th of the month and I finished the day with 33,300 words. I’m hoping to avoid having to write anything during the last weekend of November. I have way to much stuff going on when to concentrate on writing.

NaNoWriMo has totally killed my photo a day for a year project though. Well, that and the lack of light around here lately.