Please Print

This is not knitting. I thought I'd spice up the blog and take a detour from the yarn thing. Yesterday I had a card making morning and popped out about eight cards (what a record!). What can I say, I was feeling inspired. Mutti and I have a lot of stamps, ink, pens/markers, and other such stuff. Real art pharts. I made four cards using one of my favorite stamps:

india ink on smooth card stock

Last time Di came over she said she loved this card so I made two more like this and two that have 'Black Ink' stamped and the bottle done in flocking. Not real flocking. I cheat by stamping on the back of a sheet of velvet, cutting it out with an exacto knife, and gluing it on. It looks just like flocking and it will last longer. Flocking tends to rub off after a little while. Two or three of these cards will supplement her birthday gift (hat, possibly matching mitts).

And my stationery box is almost full.

Mutti got the yarn for my mittens yesterday. Didn't I tell you? Since I'm knitting her pretty Selbu mittens she wants to knit me a pair. Last week we ordered three skeins of Shetland Tweed from Harrisville Designs. Two skeins in White and one in Spruce. I was a little afraid that the white would be stark white, but it's not. It's a perfect creamy white and it looks great with the Spruce. Oh, how I love thee Shetland Tweed. Mutti is finishing a sock to free up the needles she needs and then she'll start my mittens. This will be her first color work project so everyone needs to cheer her on. She sees how much fun I have knitting her mitts and how quickly they're going so I have no doubt that she'll do wonderfully, but still.

Already wound and ready to be knit. The Spruce is split into two smaller balls for easier mitten knitting.

Speaking of how quickly her mitts are going...
I'm going to rip hers out. Yes, I know: GASP! I'm knitting these on single aughts as recommended by the author (twice*), but it's coming out much too small. I guess we have larger hands in my family. Mutti said she didn't care if one was smaller, but I care. And that's what matters around here, folks**. Here's a picture of the mitten before I rip it. I'm not very sad about it because, as I said before, I love knitting these. Plus, I want to make a small change to the five so I don't have to duplicate stitch over it (I didn't do it in this picture. I just photoshopped it so it looks like a five instead of a six) and I forgot two little thingamabobs on the 'B' to make it look more like the font I used.
I started a sock yesterday with some old yarn I've been dying to use: Austermann Step. I forget the colorway number, but it should really be called Desert Bloom. The pink spots along the sock kind of make it look like I stepped in something, but I love the other colors and the feel of the yarn so much I don't care. It's a toe-up sock knit on two US 1 circs mimicking this pattern. For the price, it's a really soft sock yarn. Must be the aloe. I would gladly work with this again.

armadillos

I'm off to make a late breakfast.

more cat pictures

*Once in the book and once on a Ravlery thread. I did use the cuff as a swatch -as recommended- and it fit fine, but once I got to the gusset/mid-hand area it got a leetle snug.

**Sorry for calling you 'folks'. It won't happen again.