So almost a year ago, I wrote a blog post about how I was going to complete some projects. One of them was a mitten.

This is the picture I posted then:

So that was last March.  Today, I got the mitten out again.  Here is how it looked almost a year later:

Who knits almost an entire mitten and then puts it away, unfinished, for almost a year?

So today I finished the mitten.  I was supposed to do the thumb in a continuation of a gray and red pattern, but I decided that this was entirely too fiddly for me to want to accomplish with the thumb (This may have been the main reason it sat unfinished for so long now that I think about it).  I was really not enjoying it, so I took out the thumb, and I started again.  This time I knitted it all gray.

Yay!  I am not thrilled with the base of the thumb.  I am not thrilled with the color work on some of the gnomes.  I have some wonky eyes.  I have some wonky gnomes altogether. The mitten does fit pretty well, although it is a little snug across the widest part of my hand.

I am just happy that it is done.  Now the problem is that mittens come in pairs.  I really have no desire to knit the second one right now.  I enjoy color work, but some of the color work on this mitten involves handling three colors at once.  I am not a fan of managing three colors at all.  They get all tangly.

Maybe I will make the second one at some point.  I am a better knitter (I think) then I was a year ago, so it would probably turn out nicer.  Then though, the first one would look even wonkier.    Maybe I will see if it will work as an oven mitt.  There’s an idea.

I just finished knitting the Azel Pullover.   I have had my eye on knitting this pattern for awhile.  I have seen pictures of it posted on pinterest and facebook, and it looked like such a fun pattern.

I used the same kind of yarn that I just used to make the Christmas stockings:  Plymouth Encore Mega.  It is such a squishy soft bulky yarn.  The pullover is knitted all in one piece with the exception of the neck.  I picked up stitches and knit it after I finished the body of the rest of it.

I made this pattern at the request of a good friend.  It’s for her daughter, and I can’t wait to see it on her.  In the meantime, my sweet Davey kindly agreed to model it for me.  This is not his favorite thing to do in the world, but he was agreeable to it yesterday!

The pullover still needs six buttons (3 on the bottom on each side), and then it will be finished.

I love the pullover, but I also love that Davey was willing to model it for me, and that he has his cute little pajamas on.  I won’t be able to get away with this much longer!

I just finished knitting four Christmas stockings.  The pattern is from picket fence knits. I knitted the stockings with Plymouth Encore Mega which is a great squishy bulky yarn.  The pattern was well-written and easy to follow, and it was also interesting enough that I didn’t get bored making four of them.  It’s not often (unheard of really) that I knit four of anything.  I haven’t had a whole lot of time to knit though, and I was always happy to sit down and work on these stockings.

The stockings still need a wooden button attached, and I am worried that my i-cord loop might be a little long and stretchy.  We shall see.  I can always remove those and re-knit them a little shorter.

I highly recommend this pattern for a beautiful Christmas stocking!

A couple of months ago, I decided I wanted to knit a good friend of mine something for him and his second grade class.  I decided to make him a jumbo gnome – a pattern from my old favorite mochimochiland.

I made Mr. Gnome with two strands of Plymouth Encore worsted weight.  Stuffed animals and little gnomes can be fiddly with the double pointed needles, but since he was so large, it was much like casting on for a pair of socks.  The color work is a nice touch and was great fun to do as well.   I loved the Encore; it was a good choice of yarn.  Holding it double was not any trouble except it was a little unwieldy during the color work.  Not too bad though. He was really a lot of fun to knit.

I got him all finished, and then at the beginning of February we told him goodbye.  Davey really wanted to keep him for his very own.

After some goodbyes, he agreed to part with him, and so we mailed him off.  Well turns out, I mailed it to an address where my friend has not lived in SIX years.  You’d think I’d know that my good friend had moved wouldn’t you.  Maybe I did know at some point but forgot?  I myself have moved about four times in the last six years so I have enough trouble remembering my own address!

So the gnome never arrived.  Unfortunately, I’d also lost my tracking slip.  My postal carrier told me that if the recipient put “Return to Sender” on the package that it should get back to me in a week or so.  I had high hopes, but it didn’t come back!  We had about given up, and I’d even started knitting a second one when finally last week, a month later, it came back!  We were thrilled!

He’s truly been a traveling gnome.  I mailed him back – to the correct address this time, and he has arrived safely.