"Hey Let's Knit Mittens!" she says

"Hey let's all knit mittens" I ambitiously said at the beginning of the month, totally ignoring the fact that we were planning a trip away, Parker was off school for a week and that his birthday would be consuming precious hours of my time.

oops.

There's progress.... there just isn't the progress that I was hoping to show you.  I may be a little ambitious on my goals... but we forge ahead.  The Nordic style mitten is actually looking fairly promising for a November finish... we got here yesterday, a large part thanks to my MiL who offered to occupy the child for the afternoon.

 

Worsted mittens are so satisfying... once you get past the thumb they practically knit themselves!

Zimushka (which is appropriate right now since my audiobook is about Russia and the Romanov family) mittens are also slowly coming to form.  I'm hoping they will move along much quicker once I have some time to do some parking lot knitting while I wait for Parker's school to be out.

I had hoped that I would have a complete pair at this point... but instead....

We were San Francisco-ing...

Birthday Celebrating...

and Kitty snuggling.... (He is not cuddly but lately he can't get enough of being on my lap on a quiet afternoon.  It is glorious to have a cat to snuggle but so so so so SO bad on productivity.)

But fear not... all of these distractions (minus an impending birthday party and random kitty snuggles) are behind us and I look forward to the remainder of the month.  I am hopeful at least I will have 2 pairs of mittens to speak of on Nov 30... with maybe more if I can still grind out some time.

Further motivating me is my desire to knit a hat and mittens for myself, which I will not even entertain until I am certain that I have an adequate number of mitten gifts to hand out to teachers.  It's going to be busy around here- so let's grind out some mittens!

Mitten Month is NOW- NaMiKnitMo

It's November 1 and, as promised, I am ready for a mitten knitting marathon!  I MUST knit 2 pairs of stranded mittens and at least one pair of regular mittens this month.  In all cases I really want to keep it to stash yarn and bust that down at the same time.  JOIN ME will you?  I've dubbed it NaMiKnitMo (National Mitten Knitting Month).

The "at home" mitten project is cast on and ready to begin.  Say hello to the sexily named- Nordic Style Mittens- stranded project #1.  (Worsted is my new jam baby!)

My "on the go" project is the Zimushka Mittens.  (LOVE the name of these!)

Both projects are using up stash yarn and I'm hoping that once I really take off on these they'll basically knit themselves right up.

BUT WAIT... weren't you going to finish up some stuff too?  Well.... yes so glad you asked.

Pattern: Maudie by General Hogbuffer
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine in colorway 1267
Needles: US 1.5
Notes: I did the cast on of 76 stitches.  General Hogbuffer knows their way around a sock.  Not only do their patterns produce incredibly satisfying and beautiful results, the instructions are TOP NOTCH.  This pattern looks complicated but is not... and I love stuff like that.

 

These socks are STUNNERS.

And the sweater.... the sweater is not done.  Progress was made but as the Halloween date approached life just got busier and I found myself with less time to devote to seaming.  (To be totally honest- I also had less motivation... I hate seaming.)

(So. Many. Ends. To. Weave. In.)

I've made an agreement with myself that this sweater must not be in a "to be seamed" pile at the end of the year.  Before the close of 2017 this sweater will be DONE.  It just will sit back for a bit while I complete the mitten Marathon.

Speaking of Halloween... would you like to see us this year?

(Star Wars is still a very big thing here- and so when you let your kid choose the costumes, you risk duplicate themes.  Darth Vader, Luke & Leia say hi!... also let's discuss how HUGE my big kid is getting!)

November is kicking off to a great start and it's even SNOWING... which is the perfect inspiration to knit.  How many mittens do you guys think I'll do this month?