Meet My Projects

Announcing a breakthrough in my blog skills! I've added a "hit counter" so that I'll know whether I'm basking in the insanity of talking to myself or whether others have graced my site with their attention. After screening several potential suppliers I settled on Statcounter. They're the only ones who did not insist on posting ads for other businesses on my site. Easy instructions got me set up without a hitch. Two thumbs up and I haven't even tried to view the stats yet! (Let's see, 6 hits and I'm thinking 5 of those are me!)

Knitting News -
Well maybe this is more of a baseline than news. Here's a picture of my "Knit Nest" carried over from WormSoup. The current projects are:
Pyramids, a Shetland kit by Ron Schweitzer
Comings and Goings, a Cardigan kit from Mostly Merino
Playing with Fire, an original design in Blue Moon Fiber Arts' "Fire on the Mountain" color
Mermaid Fingerless Gloves, by Craftoholic based on Knitty's Pomatomus socks

This is an unusual situation for me since I've always been a "serial knitter", holding fast to the discipline of finishing a project before allowing myself the joy of starting the next one. That all went out the window this summer. No idea why.

The Mermaid Gloves are getting the most attention and giving me the most grief. Like so many other knitters, I knew the minute I saw them that I had to make them. For me that moment came fairly recently when I visited Ravelry for the first time. From there various Google searches got me back to their original creator, Craftoholic, and to the Pomatomus socks that inspired them. I selected my wool and was ready to go.

Then I hit the big bump in the road. The thumb gusset. Didn't look like rocket science, but I surely would love to have had instructions. This stitch pattern waves around resulting in borders that squiggle drunkenly and don't look real friendly to a boring old gusset of paired increases. Yikes! I searched all over and found many super-competent knitters happily bragging about their finished Mermaid gloves, pretending the project was a no-brainer. Could this be a conspiracy to make some of us doubt our knitting design skills? A secret club of gusset makers?

Forced into a corner I got creative. I've figured out a thumb gusset that really does make me extremely happy. It's different from the original in that it grows very organically from the stitch pattern. Best of all, it was easy! I will put together directions and post them for all gusset-challenged people like myself. Hopefully other stymied knitters will find it a blessing. Maybe someone will even share the secret of how the originals could have been done! (Yes, I'm still wondering.) More on this next post.

By the way, don't take the mirrored left hand glove for granted. Just when you think you're out of the woods…