I had a nice productive knitting weekend planned – M. le Fiance went to D.C. to hang out with M. le Pere du Fiance (gosh, French looks lame without the accents. Serendipity Guys, can’t you get on that?), so I thought I’d have lots of time to dash off the fourth repetition of the wedding stole and maybe catch up on some of my neglected projects in the bargain.
But my dear friend Kate came to town for her bachelorette party, and I volunteered to puppy-sit while she was here. So I spent the weekend with Mochi, twenty-five pounds and thirteen weeks of wriggly baby Golden Doodle. For those of you not fluent in designer dog speak, that’s half Golden Retriever and half Poodle. She couldn’t be sweeter, but she was good for my resolve not to get a dog while I live in New York City. I think I made more trips to the park in one day than I have in the past month. And I learned right away that she needed to be carried down the four flights of stairs – too much jouncing is not good on the puppy bladder! The long and short of it is that I had a good time with the dog and at the bachelorette party, but I didn’t get as much knitting done as I thought I would.
I did finish the left front piece of Lightning, and I went ahead and attached it to the back piece using three-needle bind-off. The Rowan Plaid is so bulky that I split out one of the three strands and used that for seaming. I was happy with the resulting small seam – the pattern suggests back stitch or mattress stitch, but I think either one would produce a pretty chunky seam. I’m not totally satisfied with the way the pattern lines up front to back. If the right front piece comes out looking better, I may undo some of today’s work and try to fix it, but it will be mostly covered by the collar anyway.
I also pulled out poor neglected Charlotte, and I decided that what was holding me back there was the long metal straight needles I’d been using. I just don’t like the extra weight and unwieldiness they create. I realized my #8 Addi circs were free, so I whipped out those little miracles and in no time I’d finished the waist shaping for the front. There’s a lesson here, friends – everything is better with Addis! I have to say I do love the Yorkshire Tweed wool, and I don’t even mind picking bits of organic matter out of it. It’s a very earthy yarn, and it reminds me of home – the fields of sheep in the valley, the spring lambs gamboling, the livestock barns and the sheep-to-shawl competition at the County Fair, and the Lopez sheepdog trials in the summer. I’m beginning to scout for sales on the Yorkshire Tweed Chunky. If Adam is very good, he just might get a sweater out of it in time for his birthday this year. Don’t worry – his birthday isn’t until November, and we’ll already be hitched by then, so the Curse of the Love Sweater will be negated.
I’ve also started thinking about that green Plassard (Galler) Flore I bought to make a capelet. I’ve been dying to try the moire pattern that looks like herringbone, and I’m doodling pictures of a capelet with moire shoulder panels and a zig-zaggy irregular vine pattern on the front and back. It’s early stages, and don’t hold your breath because the wedding stole has to come first, but I think I might be about to design something. Of course, the Flore may be too fuzzy to show any kind of pattern – only swatching will tell. And like I said, don’t hold your breath.

Here are the mittens I’ve been knitting piecemeal over the last two weeks. I call them the Merry mittens because I lifted the tuck pattern on the cuff from a Kim Hargreaves sweater design by that name. I’m totally delighted with the right mitten, which I pretty much made up as I went along, with loose guidelines from Katharina Buss’s Big Book of Knitting. When I have time to take them outside in the daylight, I’ll try to get a picture that shows off the lovely color of this yarn.
It’s some of the first yarn I ever bought – back in September when I was just learning to knit, we went up to Putney, VT for the weekend and I stopped at Green Mountain Spinnery. I went through their odds-and-ends barrel and picked out three skeins of this beautiful tweedy blue wool, flecked with white and subtly twisted with a few wine red fibers. But then I had no idea what to do with it – it’s too scratchy for a scarf or a hat, and I didn’t have enough for a sweater. I thought I might make a felted bag. But then I decided it was crying to be mittens, and the idea for these sprang fully formed from my head, like Athena, only more modest and woolly and less god-like. (They are humble mittens, after all.) I knit up the right mitten in a weekend. I was absurdly pleased with it. I have very long hands, and store-bought mittens and gloves rarely fit me well. You can’t tell from the picture, but the finger part goes on and on. Fortunately, it’s only 36 stitches to a round, so it didn’t feel too slow knitting a tube sock for my fingers. It’s delightful to have customized mittens that fit perfectly.
Then I worked on my other projects, and I finally cast on for the left mitten last week. Of course I hadn’t written down my pattern for the first one (lesson learned!). I proceeded to knit the cuff, realized I’d made a glaring error, and unraveled it again. I knit and unraveled three times, dear reader. I felt like Penelope with Laertes’s death shroud, only less cunningly purposeful. But I finally got it right, so last night I worked the thumb gusset and fourchette. This time, I’m taking notes. Since we’re having wintry weather again, I just might finish in time to get some use out of the Merry mittens this season.
And of course you’re dying to know if I’ve been keeping up my progress on the wedding stole. I’m proud to report I have, so here’s a picture of three weeks’ work:

Here it is – the beginning of the wedding stole. These are the first thirty-two rows of the lace pattern, representing my first week’s progress. I’ve set myself the goal of completing another of these repetitions every week for the next fifteen weeks. It’s a project the likes of which I’ve never undertaken, and fairly ambitious for a knitter of my limited experience. I’ve never worked with lace-weight yarn before, never used needles this small, never used mohair… but I’m learning, by golly! The pattern modifications Kate Gilbert sent me are working out beautifully.

There was one near-disaster with the cat – he jumped into my lap, and before I could react he’d put his hind leg through a coil of the working yarn. I picked him up and tried to untangle him, but he squirmed free and shot off around the coffee table, dragging my WIP behind him. By the time I got him loose, the damage was done. Thanks to the mohair, the stitches that came off the needles had only laddered down three or four rows, but it still took a tense twenty minutes (Adam. Sit here. Hold this needle. Don’t. Move.) of painstaking work with my fingernails, a needle and a set of tweezers to repair the mess. I wasn’t able to even out the tension perfectly, and there may be a few twisted stitches in there, but it won’t be noticeable to any but the most practiced eye.

There’s a long way to go, but I’m pleased to have made this start!

Here is the pattern for my Snow Sky hat, which I finally got around to photographing:

Materials:

2 balls ONLine Linie 97 "Iceland" in 01 mist, available online from fuzzymabel.com

24" circular needles, US#8 (5mm) (this is a smaller needle size than recommended, so your hat will be thick and almost felt-like)

US#8 double-pointed needles, set of 5

stitch markers

one split-ring stitch marker, or a paperclip or safety pin

Pattern:

CO 81 stitches. When you join the ends, K2tog to create a very solid join. 80 stitches on needles. Knit in the round until hat measures 7 cm, or 3 1/4", from CO row. Complete final round and mark the first stitch of the next round with the split-ring marker.

Next round: Work holes for i-cord as follows: YO, K2tog, YO, K2tog, K6. Repeat seven more times to complete round.

Next round: Knit even. Work until total measurement from CO row is 20 cm, or 8". Complete last round.

Switch to double-pointed needles as follows: K10 sts onto first dpn, place marker. K10 more sts onto first dpn. Repeat with second, third, and fourth dpns.

Next round (begin decreases): Use fifth dpn to K8 st from first dpn, then K2tog. Slip marker onto fifth dpn, K8, K2tog. First dpn is now free. Use it to repeat process with second dpn, etc.

Next round: K7, K2tog.

Next round: K6, K2tog.

Next round: K5, K2tog.

Next round: K4, K2tog.

Next round: K3, K2tog.

Next round: K2, K2tog.

Next round: K1, K2tog.

Next round: K2tog, removing markers. 8 sts on needles. Leaving a tail at least 6" long, cut yarn and thread end through remaining sts. Weave in all ends.

Make i-cord: Using dpns, CO 3 sts. Work in i-cord (go to knittinghelp.com for a great tutorial if you need one) until total length is enough to encircle the hat and tie a bow. Bind off and weave in ends. Thread i-cord through the holes in the hat (cord should be on the outside of the hat) and tie bow.