It's Coming...

 A few years ago, I made wool mittens to have spare mittens for the kindergarten classes I supervised at lunch. They were a hit. I had stocked up on wool (I also liked making felted slippers). Then I quit. Now I have a lot of smaller balls of a variety of wools. The gnomes I made used up some (and now there's another mystery gnome knit along! Do I join? Give Gnathan a sibling?), but there's lots left. When a pair of toddler/kindie size mitten only takes 34gr of wool, it's going to take quite a few pairs of mittens to use up the wool. Why not? I have six charity blankets ready to go, but they're not accepting any right now, and I don't really have any acrylic worsted yarn for more (I do have some pastel coned yarn but it speaks more baby than senior). 

I used Ann Budd's pattern from The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. This is an excellent book if you don't mind not having your hand held every row. I used the second size, and I think 5st/inch. The cast on was 30st. I've started another pair with 32 stitches. I do them two at a time. If I get low on yarn, I'll do the thumbs before the tops, and then I can add stripes in the upper part.

Yarn In:  1400gr

Yarn Out: 34gr + 3730gr = 3764gr

Balance:  2364gr more OUT than in

Cost:  $0, $0/day

Finally

 Last summer I knit some newborn hats on my Singer 327. I cast on for more, got part way into the 4th, and got busy. It was bugging me to see them hanging on the machine, waiting to be finished. I've been thinking about selling my Singer 500, which is on the same table, so I wanted to tidy up to take pictures. I finished up, then sat outside to sew them up.

I don't have details, except that I had jotted down 75 rows, which is too many, I feel. 

The four hats weighed in at 73gr once finished, but I did have a lot of waste because of winding a small bobbin off yarn off the cone at the end of each hat so that I do a couple decreasing rows by hand and sew up. I used a strand of navy and a strand of green. 

Yarn In:  1400gr

Yarn Out: 100gr + 3630gr = 3730gr

Balance:  2330gr more OUT than in

Cost:  $0, $0/day

Blankets

I mentioned a few posts ago that I got a big donation of yarn. I've pretty much used it up! Two more charity blankets off the needles. 

The first one was the bottom one. It has bands of white/cream separating the colours, and I tried to alternate green and brown. Sometimes I don't settle into an idea until I've knit a bit, so it doesn't always look intentional.  It's 558gr. 

The second one was the darker one on top, because I had a lot of dark greens left. It weighs in at about 485gr.  It ended up a bit smaller. I was going to do a border, but I hate doing that.

What's been keeping me busy was an AQ course (Additional Qualification) for music, Primary and Junior. That ended, and I've gotten to finally play with my new camera. I spent a lot of the time working on the course outside, where I got to know a cardinal couple. 

This is after she chased off a starling. It was fun watching her when she collected twigs for her nest. 

I didn't get good pictures of the baby. The first time they came around, it was mostly beige and very fluffy. The next time it was showing more red. Years ago I kept seeing a cardinal that was half beige, half red. So I think it takes time for the boys to get their full colour.

I really really like this photo. Click on it, and zoom in. He has an alder seed in his beak. 

They brought their baby around, and then they started a new family. Apparently they don't use the same nest each time. There was a couple days that when I went out front (I knew the nest had been in a skyrocket evergreen at the front corner of the house), the mom cardinal was chirping like crazy from the pine tree next to the walkway. I decided to investigate, and found a baby bird perched on the edge of a nest! I ran in for the camera, and came back out to see it flutter down to a lower branch.

Oh, was Momma ever ticked! She spent a long time chirping, hopping from branch to branch, encouraging it to return. The baby went the wrong way around the tree, towards the front, rather than the short trip to it's left. I had to leave. Just then Daddy came back and there was a discussion. I can just imagine Momma telling him the headaches his offspring had given her that afternoon while he was out having fun LOL. 

When I came back, I saw Daddy chirping madly. I looked up and saw a large bird, about the size of a mourning dove (which we used to have in that tree). It wasn't a dove though, because it was sitting upright on the branch and it had a hawk bill! Daddy chased it off and I think every cardinal on the street was chirping loudly! We couldn't find baby, and I haven't seen or heard it since. I don't know if he was a snack for the hawk, which was likely a sharp-shinned hawk.  

We've also had two litters of bunnies since June. Most have scattered, one got eaten and this guy is in trouble if he doesn't stop munching my plants. The pictures of the newborn bunnies are really adorable. It was great to see the progression. This was the first time there was a nest in the grass instead of under the deck.

I've been growing a hops vine in the back yard for the past few summers. This is the first summer it produced hops. I think it's cool that they mimic the lights Rob put up on the fence.

Now, I'm spending most of my time driving kids around. Megan got a job, and is back skating, and has physio, as well as Lucy working, so I'm busy, busy, busy! 

 Yarn In:  1400gr

Yarn Out: 1 043gr + 3730gr = 4773gr

Balance:  3333 gr more OUT than in

Cost:  $0

Gnice to Meet You!

 I was scrolling Instagram in May and saw something about a mystery knit-along to knit.... a gnome. I don't think I've ever knit a mystery knit along. And I've never knitted a gnome. It was post-winter accessories season, I was bored of charity blankets. So, of course, I had to knit a gnome! Why not?

It'd been a long time since I've used Ravelry, and even longer since I've actually bought a pattern. And how long since I've done cables? I got my wool (didn't knit a swatch), found a cable needle, and got ready. 

This was the first pattern to put on my new iPad Mini. That taxed my brain a bit. How come under Downloads, ProReader says there's 18 files, but when I open it, there's only 4? Anyway, I got going, not always right on schedule, and I struggled with the written instructions and reinforced my love of graphs, but I did finish and post a picture before the deadline to be entered in the draws. I don't think I won anything, except ownership of Gnathan. 

At first, everyone was like, "Why are you making a gnome?!"

Once done, requests started coming in. I knew though that I had to make a Tricolour Gnome. 

This is Alfie, meeting Jase. Poor Jase. He came to use with one blue eye and one brown eye and over time, lost his hand. But we love him. Alfie is named after the ArtSci nightclub at Queen's University when we were there. The new name is The Underground, but that doesn't work for a gnome.

Lucy wasn't all that impressed with Alfie, and I got the impression she didn't want to adopt him for her new house in Kingston. She showed him to her elder sibling, and they thought he was awesome and wanted one too. So, Clark was born. Clark is named after the Engineering Pub at Queen's. 

I couldn't remember which needles I used for the various parts, so they're not exactly the same size. Clark's tassel shows the hardships of engineering student life, I think something happened at the Greasepole. He's a little bit scrawnier, and his beard is covering up his pocket protector :)

Gnathan used a total of 214gr of the Condon's Yarns, but I don't know how much Tricolour yarns were used. Some was from Topsy Farm, some was some other random wool from my stash. I'm pretty much out of Tricolour now, and Rob thinks I'm going to make him for work too. I'm just going to estimate the same for the Tricolour.

On Instagram, I post pictures of drawings I do in Procreate. The first thing I actually drew was a little gnome. Later, I started adding Nomie to newer pictures I'd draw (cut and paste style). Megan thinks I should knit a real life Nomie and take him on real adventures. Maybe. 

Yarn In:  1400gr

Yarn Out: 642gr + 2988gr = 3630gr

Balance:  2230gr more OUT than in

Cost:  $0, $0/day