Convertible Mittens

I was a little burnt out after I finished The Boy's scarf, and to tell the truth, my fingers still get phantom cramps when I think about how much knitting I did at the end of December, but I now need some mittens, and I think it's time for me to attempt some. I hate mittens, though, because you have to whip them off every time you need to use your fingers, which just sucks. I like the idea of convertible mittens, and I found a pattern that I think I understand, so I'll be attempting those soon (soon being within the month of January). I actually started them last night, but I didn't have the right size needles, and I didn't feel like being an innovator, so I ripped them out. I am interested in training myself to knit without a pattern for things other than scarves, but I don't think that this is the right project with which to begin my liberation from the tyranny of patterns.

Update: I wrote this in January. It is now August of 2008, I don't even remember starting/stopping this pattern, and there is no more Boy. So a lot has changed. But I guess this explains why I saw the tag "knitting ennui" when I went to write a new post today!

Holy Hiatus, Batman!

It's been a while since I last posted anything, but I have actually been knitting stuff. I made more booties (and then didn't photograph them, but more on that later), but the big project was the scarf that I made for The Boy. It was a broken rib scarf, and if I'd had any idea how much work that was going to be, I probably wouldn't have slacked off until late-mid December. I started it when I bought the yarn in October, but then got bored with how slow it was coming. Fast forward to the week before Christmas, when I realized that I had a problem on my hands.

How to finish without my fingers falling off? It wasn't easy. I stopped hating the pattern so much and became an automaton, and fell in love with the cashmerino yarn, which also helped a lot. I watched a whole lot of Buffy dvds until the wee hours of the morning, but I finished a whole 20-some odd hours before Christmas, so GO ME. Below, the finished product:
Wow. I just realized how horribly blurry this picture is (this may be why you're not supposed to take pictures of FOs at 3 am, after 7 hours of marathon knitting and cursing).

I finally sent out four pairs of booties that I'd been holding hostage longer than was decent. I stupidly forgot to take pictures of them (more for color variety, since they were all made from the same pattern), but one of my friends was kind enough to send me a picture of her son wearing them. This is the first time that I've seen my booties on a human. Cute! She said that he usually hates socks, but kept these on for a few hours, which tickled me to no end. I'm honored. The kid lives in the South, and it wasn't that cold there on Christmas, so I salute the trooper. The pattern is made for a baby of about six months, so they're kind of huge on him right now, but at least they'll last for a while.