Gloves...What a Nightmare!

Well, I have officially completed my first pair of gloves.  Probably will not be doing very many more in the future.  With me, though, you can never be too sure.  Sometimes, I like to do things until I get it right and they start to become easy for me to do. The gloves were tricky, and sometimes the pattern was not true to what needed to be done, but with a little frustration and a whole lot of determination, I persevered to the end.  I found out the hard way, that the pattern had a problem in stitch count when I completed my first two fingers and found out that they were coming out of the middle of the hand instead of next to the thumb.  A mutant may have been able to wear it, but certainly not my five-year-old grandson.  I had to take out those two fingers and try to pick up the stitches of the hand again without making it too noticeable.  The stitches were small and the yarn frayed quite easily, so picking up the stitches was the nightmare I faced.  All in all, the procedure is not difficult, and once I got the hang of it, the fingers went in quite smoothly.  It was also a challenge to work with the four double pointed needles and have another needle holding the unused stitches.  Needles just kept getting tangled up and crossed.  Sometimes, my finger would become twisted and I would have to take the stitches out (one by one on these occasions) until I got back to where I twisted and get things turned around. The second glove was much easier because I had worked out all the kinks and quirks with the first one.  Lucky for me that yarn is such a forgiving medium with which to work.  I can often cover up mistakes...sometimes not completely unnoticeable as with these gloves...but other times they look great.  I won't worry too much about these gloves if Ellis isn't crazy about them, I am just happy for the experience in making something I have never done before.  With practice, I'm sure I could make a pretty decent looking glove.

Last year's hats.

This year's mittens and gloves.  I opted to not make the gloves out of red because the yarn was too thick. I think the will get more use out of these gloves, anyway.

This completes my Christmas projects.  I now need to start making puppets, puzzles, and games for my new Sunbeam class at church.  I get a whole new group of kids in January.  It is exciting this year because I will have two of my grandchildren, Dot and Joey.

Ezra's PJs

It is midnight and I am recording my latest project completion.  I have had Ezra's pajamas cut out and ready to sew for some time now, but have not been up to doing it.  I started this past weekend, and by doing at least one pair a day, I have now finished the five pairs.  Here they are:

This shows a sample of what they all look like.  This, however, is the only pair that I put tread proof bottoms on the soles of the feet.  I didn't think to do it until I got to the last pair, so I did it with these.  The others have soles that match the PJs.

This shows the prints on each of them.  Trucks, (of course), animal heads, trains,  backyard with dogs and doghouses, and jungle animals... I couldn't decide which to use, so I used them all. 

I also got a picture of Joey and Lexi wearing their hats and mittens when we were out for our walk yesterday.  Here they are modeling them for Grandma.

I was a little worried that it wouldn't be cold enough for them to use this year, but it was definitely cold enough yesterday.

I have been working on Ellis' gloves.  I have had my problems, but I will tell about them in my next blog when I have finished both gloves.  I did get the first one finished today.  Should be done tomorrow.

Mittens, Mittens, and More Mittens

If you want to know what I have been up to, well I have been knitting mittens most recently.  For a while I was working on a new project called, 'Keeping America Warm'. It is a project that makes afghans, hats, and other accessories for needy people around the country.  You can complete whole projects, or just pieces and send them to be assembled and sent to needy people.  I decided to knit a complete afghan, rather than just do a block and send it to be added to other peoples' blocks.  I will post a picture of it when I have it finished.  It is a ways away from that.  Anyway, in the meantime, I decided to make Christmas mittens for the grand kids.  I made the hats last year and now I have made mittens to go with their hats.  I got the idea for doing mittens when Kim asked me to make mittens for Dot and Lucy.  She didn't care what yarn I used, she just wanted mittens.  I made them, and then I decided to also make mittens for all of the kids.  Since it is Christmas time, I decided to do the Christmas mittens.  Here they are with pictures of the hats that I made last year.

These are the mittens for Dot and Lucy that inspired me to make the Christmas mittens.

These are the hats made for Zoe and Jackson last year.

These are the mittens for Zoe and Jackson made to go with the hats.

Dot's and Lucy's hats from last year.

Dot's and Lucy's mittens.  Dot's are really the same size as Lucy's.  They look smaller because of the angle of the shot.

Hats for Lexi and Joey.

Mittens for Joey and Lexi.  Joey's are the green and look smaller because of the angle again.

Ezra wasn't born yet, so he had no hat last year.  Here is his hat and mittens made this year.

 I have finished a pair of mittens to go with Portia's hat, but because I will not be seeing them until Christmas day, I will not be able to deliver them to her until then.  I still need to make a pair of gloves for Ellis.  I think gloves are in order for him because he is older than the other kids.  I haven't decided if I will make his red to match his hat, or if I will make them from multicolored yarn.  The pattern I have calls for sports weight yarn and the red that I used for his hat is heavier.  The multicolored yarn is a lighter weight and would probably be more useful to him than the red ones.  I will decide when I start to make them.  I will post a picture of their hats and mittens/gloves when I get the gloves finished.