First up, mittens for my husband! It’s currently Ass Cold in New England; our first bitterly cold snap of the season, really, and I realized this weekend that my poor husband who goes to work at stupid-early in the morning was doing so bare-handed. I’m using Michelle Porter’s Easy Basic Mitten pattern to make him some stripey, bulky orange-and-green hand protection:

Detailed project details are this way. Seth’s hand circumference matches the pattern as written, so the only mods so far are that I’m lengthening it to accommodate his long man-fingers, although I am fudging row counts to get the 4-row stripes to fit in evenly. I have some plans to crunch numbers to make the thumb gusset on mitten #2 fall on the opposite side of the mitten, so the stripe jogs mirror each other. (I’ve been trying to do jogless stripes, but when you’re working with such big stitches it’s really hard to fool the eye completely.)

And…I’m making the kiddo another soaker. I’m knitting the LPB on size 8 needles for this, which is resulting in a totally dense bulletproof fabric I think will work great for stopping leaks. Eve’s fitted-style cloth diapers are Crickett’s in Toddler+, which work great, but with the doubler insert they make her butt huge, and the soakers required to cover such an area are rather epic indeed. At the rate she’s growing I only have a few left that fit over her diapers. The lady at my LYS on Sunday (I was in there because I ran out of black yarn) saw my soaker-in-progress asked me if I was going to felt it. ::snort:: If this thing ever does get felted I think I could use it as building material.

After this soaker is done I’m going to try and make a pair of longies out of a recycled wool sweater. I have the sewing skills of a cavewoman, but honestly, I really need a break from knitting all these damn butt sweaters.

Exhibit A:
Noro Silk Garden Sock — I’ve been interested in this yarn for a while, but I’ve been balking at the $19.85 price tag. Lucky(?) for me, online retailer Annie Amelia has eight different colorways on sale for $13.50 a skein, just over 30% off.

Exhibit B:
Cascade Eco Plus — discontinued colors are at webs for $8.29 per whopping half-pound skein. That’s 45% off the already good price of $15 retail, people. I’m not terribly enthused about Tropical Sea or Prom Queen, but Lilac looks awfully enticing.

In other news, I finished cataloging my yarn stash and entering things into Ravelry last night and I was somewhat horrified to discover I own 38 balls of Noro. (It’s not SO bad, really. There are three bags, and a handful of oddball skeins.)

IT’S OKAY, NO, REALLY, I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WANT.

I don’t throw it away, because I made it all and even though I can objectively admit that a lot of it is pretty fugly, It’s mine and I love it. But what on earth will I ever *do* with it? I’ve previously entertained notions of getting into freeform crochet, but lately I’ve been thinking of trying out a Rigid Heddle Loom. Because, you know, what I *really* need in my life is yet another fiber hobby.

There is no logic in obsession.

In other news, the Tuesday Morning Knitters were in the local paper!
I know, I know.  Curiously enough, I have never eaten a Puffin.