It took a little while but they’re done and I’m happy.

Pattern: Knotty Gloves

Yarn: Casbah in Sugarplums

Needles: 1.5mm Knitpicks Options (used magic loop method for entire glove)

Time to Knit: Began February 1, 2009 so, a little over a year.

Now my needles are empty – but the Olympics are right around the corner!  I can’t wait!

The past few weeks have been crazy busy for me.  Busy crunching numbers and busy in the sewing room (new bags are going up in the shop today!  Probably this afternoon – btw, did you know you could subscribe to an RSS feed for an Artfire or Etsy shop?) which has led me to yearn for ‘down time’ which has led me to do more spinning and, consequently, more knitting.  Instead of casting on a new project, I decided to start working through some of my WIPs.  First up?  My hands have been pretty cold lately so I decided to break out the gloves.

The last time I spoke of my Knotty Gloves was June 18th when I was at this stage of the game:

For some reason, after I posted this, I put them down for almost six months (!).  I’m thinking maybe I was intimidated by fingers…ohwell, now they look like this:

Getting there!  ;o)

…instead of crossed.

On Saturday, I picked up my Knotty Gloves for the first time in quite a while.  I’m at the point on the first glove where you’re done with the thumb gusset and are about to start the fingers.  I slipped it on to admire my lovely cabling and noticed a slight problem.

The cable that’s at the very tippy top of the knot?  Is going over when it’s supposed to go under.  Crap.  I know that it’s not something that will jump out at the average person and I know that it’s not even something a knitter would notice (or even a Knitter, for that matter) but now that *I* have noticed it, it’s STARING. at. me.  *sigh*

So, for most of that row, I tried to talk myself into ignoring it.  I made it most of the way around, then when I flipped the glove over to finish the row, the knot was facing me.  Guess what?  The over-instead-of-under was glaring at me like a ginormous zit on a prom queen’s forehead. *sigh* again.

Major surgery was in order.  I gathered all my tools, my crochet hook, my size 1 dpn’s, my row counter (since I was dropping down to a charted part of the glove, I wanted to keep track of what row I was on) and I poured myself a cosmo.

Then I dropped. stitches.  Six of them, and I went down 36 rows. When I got down to where I needed to be, I put the stitches on a dpn, then put whole mess down and stared at it for a minute.  Then I took a picture.  Because I wanted to share my pain jubilation.

Then, with shaking hands, I picked it up and fixed the cable.  I knit up about six rows and noticed another problem.

I had knitted through the back loop on one of the stitches ON TOP OF THE DAMNED CABLE.  GAH!

So…I dropped down the six rows I had just knit, and fixed it AGAIN.  Making sure I didn’t screw up AGAIN.  Then proceeded to knit up 36 rows to the current row.  When I got up to the current row, I put the glove down again and gazed at what I had done:

…then I drank the cosmo.  ;o)

p.s. For those who are interested,  there’s another CSM on the market! Risa has decided she doesn’t want her NZAK anymore.  :o(

Fingerless mitts.  How cool is that?!  Last week I found the pattern here (you have to email and ask for it) and finally had time to sit and play on Saturday.  FOUR. HOURS. (and one severe temper tantrum) later, I had these.  They’re warm and squishy an have 10% cashmere and I love them.

Yarn:  Hand Maiden Casbah (holy heart attack batman, I thought for sure that my machine would eat it just because it has cashmere in it); Colorway ‘Seastorm’

Gauge:  uhm…the middle line on the machine using the 54 needle cylinder.  I finished the thumb by transferring the stitches to a size 1 needle, knitting four rows of 1×1 rib, cast off and stitched the thumb together with the tail.  I also transferred the top stitches to a size 1 needle and cast off that way.  I could have cast off with the waste still attached with no transfer but I didn’t want to have to learn something else new, my brain couldn’t handle it at that point.  ;op

In other NaKniSweMo news…St. Patrick did some major damage to my hands last night so he’s on time out.  I think I have to try to do something a little less cable-y for this month’s challenge so I’m doing some quick thinking and stash diving.  I still have 20 days so I’m not worried, the sweater I’m going to make is knit on 8s which is bigger gauge than my Olympic Sweater that I finished in 16 days AND that one had a hood.

into this:

I had to give it a bath and a thwacking to make it behave so I had to wait for it to dry (in front of a fan and then on the flat thingy in the dryer when it STILL wasn’t dry enough). Then on Sunday morning I cast on a pair of Fetching and by the end of Sense & Sensibility last night, I had this:

I even spent most of the afternoon cleaning up the yard (hence the band-aid on my thumb – thank God I blister easily or I would have been out there longer!) If that’s not almost instant gratification, I don’t know what is. ;o)

Specs:

So, speaking of S&S, how did you all like it?

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