Mittens and More Mittens

I am 95% finished with Elyssa's Dragonfly Mittens!

You might be thinking, "Gee Erika, those look pretty finished to me".  Good point, dear reader.  Good point.  I was trying to resolve the "these are the scratchiest damn mittens on the Earth" issue by washing and drying them a few times (they are superwash wool).  The nice lady at FreshIsleFibers.com told me that it would help a lot.  She was right.  Unfortunately, it also shrunk them down just a bit-and they are now to small.  So I ripped out the taper stitches in one of the thumbs in order to add 3 rows of length and then re-taper and finish the thumb.  I threw it in the washer and dryer-and the thumb fits a lot better now.  But I am wondering if the length is too short (for the hand) now.  I might need to do the same thing for the hands.  I was hoping that wouldn't be the case since that will require ripping out pattern stitches which will be much more of a pain to re-do, but if it needs it, it needs it.  Also, the cuff is too loose... and I'm not sure of how to fix that without just starting all over again with fewer cast on stitches for the cuff?  I'll keep you posted.

Our cat Mischief doesn't seem to mind all of the problems with them!  Also-the sister that they are going to is probably his favorite human on the planet.

In other mitten news, I am almost done with my other sister Erin's Twilight mittens!  I love this pattern-and I know that my sister will love it as a Christmas gift. The problem was that Bella’s actual mittens in the movie Twilight are not stockinette stitched in the palms. They have some sort of textured stitch. When I have looked at alternative patterns for these mittens, I found that the designers brought the textured stitch all the way around to where the cables are on the top of the mittens-which also isn’t correct. It took some doing (about 5-6 complete rip outs of the hands) but finally I got a textured stitch on the palms of the hands, while maintaining the ribbing on the sides of the cables and the cables themselves. Tiresome work! But now my sister’s mittens will look much more like the real ones worn in the movie!

I am pretty excited about this cardigan.

I have never knit or crocheted something for myself that I actually have finished.  I have a lot of patterns stored up that I would like to someday make- even yarn for some of them, but I just always have some other project that I would like to make for my sisters or my husband that takes priority.  Not this time.  I forgot to put this picture up a week or two ago when I finished this cardigan, so here it is.  I have worn it 3-4 times already, and people always compliment it.  That really makes be happy since I have never worn anything I have made before, so I never know how people respond to the items.  Anyway-just wanted to include this cardigan because I love it and I am really proud of it.  By the way, the patern is from Teva Durham's Loop-d-Loop Crochet book. 

And finally- I really must include some pictures of the hubbs and our super cute dog.  It has been a bit chilly at night here recently, so we have been getting ample use out of our fireplace.  These are pictures of my boys this past Saturday night.