Bit of This, Bit of That

I want to keep up to date with showing projects and stash additions this year....but I don't seem to be doing too well!  It's been busy this month, trying to promote TracyKM Designs, recovering from Christmas, then a delayed Christmas gift exchange, regular parenting craziness compounded by a "political protest" by teachers that meant a day off school was cancelled last minute but the kids still didn't go to school, a return of lice, an unexpected PD Day tomorrow...I've got all sorts of things I want to talk about, show you, etc...but hopefully I can squeeze in a few posts over the next couple days since next Monday and Tuesday are going to be crazy (but at least it's planned craziness, LOL).

Since it's been SOOOO cold here this week, how about I get caught up on mittens first?  I can't even remember what I've shown before! 

Dec 22 was the Christmas party for my Dad's side of the family.  We do a little gift exchange game, and the ladies bring a "girl" gift and the men bring a "boys" gift.  I knew I would sew mittens for my "grandma" and for the game.  I knew that I had to start early in the month since there's a lot going on in Dec. and I also wanted to make some for the school mitten tree and for a girl who invited Meg to her party but Meg couldn't go (and I knew she was low income so I just wanted to share with her).  Rob said he was going to make a birdhouse and I asked him the week before how it was going....well, "can you make mittens for me too"....

I had trouble picking out fabrics for my grandma's mitts.  I wanted them to be special.  Finally I went with this striped cashmere and plain black (which I actually had to shop for).  I showed her how they were reversible, black for mucking out the barn, and stripes for the dreary day you need a boost.  I didn't get a picture of the finished mitts :(

The teal mitts have red fleece with white maple leaves, the middle ones have bright green fleece inside and a dark green wool outside.  The right ones are machine knit.  All these went on the mitten tree, along with ones I think I showed in Dec.

These are the same ones but also with the birthday gift ones--the pink ones in the upper left.  I don't remember what was inside...the bright green fleece maybe.

I might have shown these.  The bottom ones were a custom pair, a woman wanted a pair at Beadle but with fleece inside.  I had just enough of the Gap scarf to do that.  After shopping around I found a bit of navy fleece as t a thrift shop.  It was a really nice fleece!  Also really nice was the pair of black shoes I found...

The top pair has a woven alpaca fabric inside (my mother in law had a long cape that she hemmed and passed the scraps on to me).  I cut that fabric on the bias to give it more stretch.

Another shot of the mitts as I was having a hard time with the turquoise mitts.  They are much more green than this!  And the pink ones were more pink.

For the "girls gift" I made these mittens.  The inside was a boring 80's taupe sweater; a multi-blend with some angora (and shoulder pads).  The outside is from a scarf.  It was a double sided scarf; the other side was plain pink, so I used that for the palms.  Because the fair isle is thicker, this makes the back of the hands warmer while allowing the thumbs to be a little thinner, done in the thinner plain pink.  They were well received.

These are the boy's gift mittens.  The outside was the last bits of the blue DKNY sweater I had used  for the water bottle holders in the summer.    The inside was the red fleece with white maple leaves.  The funny thing....the winners are married (to each other) LOL.

 

I haven't sewn any mitts since these, and I haven't finished the mitten pattern for on the LK150.  All I have are the photos.  The laptop was acting up, and then the kids got new electronic devices for Christmas so we had to limit our wifi use until we could upgrade our service so I couldn't use the laptop which meant sitting at the desktop which means a sore bum...LOL.  I tried writing most of this post on my new tablet, but I had to upload the pictures at the desktop, and proof read.  It's not a good set up with the tablet, so I hope the laptop stays working!  I much prefer to sit on the couch and watch recorded episodes of Dr Oz while I blog LOL.  Since the kids are home from school now, I'll save the stash update post for tomorrow.  No yarn stash was used in this post anyway LOL (though I have bought several more sweaters...).