At last

I'm back to the land of the living, pretty much. Thank you for your prayers and happy thoughts! This was a bad, bad cold. Avoid it if you can.

I wanted to show you these mittens. Years ago, I used this pattern to make Lizi a pair of mittens. With cold weather coming on, I wanted to make a pair for Lydia. I let her choose the yarn, and she picked Peaches 'n Cream in Salmon Royale. The pattern is from the book Knit Something Special by Polly Pyne. It is long out of print, I'm sure, but it has several good patterns and would be worth picking up if you can find a reasonably priced used copy.

I like this pattern because of the unique way it is made. The entire project can be completed on two needles. The shaping and all the stitches are very simple (and therefore quick). Simple enough for a sick, medicated mama, even. The first photo shows a finished mitten, along with a mitten lying flat before sewing. I've also shown what was left of the skein of yarn, to show that one is plenty for the medium size at least.

Lydia loves her new mittens. Could hardly wait for me to finish the second one; she wore just one mitten around while I worked. I really wanted a photo of them on her little hands to show you, but the child hates, loathes and in every other way despises posing for photographs. This is her attempt to not let me see the mittens on her hands:
Pretty effective.

view from the couch

love my trees...

love this yarn...

hate being sick.

*sigh*

that's all.

Election day activity

I just wanted to share a little thing we've done every presidential election day with Lizi, and now with Lydia. After we go out and vote, we come home and print out a map of the US. Then, as the election results come in, we color in the states appropriately. I think it helps teach geography and time zones (but usually digresses into a discussion of our electoral system and how outdated it is). If you'd like to try it, you may find a printable map here.

And please go out and vote. Tomorrow I would like to be able to say "The people have spoken"; not "The media has spoken and the people mindlessly repeated in unison".

Finally - a new project!

Or one I can show you, at least. The "recently completed projects" photos on the right have not been updated in a while, you may have noticed. That's because almost everything I've been working on lately has either been for the Etsy shop, or for a Christmas present. If you want to see my Etsy stuff, you can just go to my shop; and if I show what I'm working on for Christmas, well, that wouldn't be much of a surprise, would it?

But here's a fun new thing. Through a series of events that I will not take time to relate, we have an extra cell phone. My aunt doesn't have a cell, and could really use one. So she gets our extra. Since this is her first cell phone, I thought she needed a spiffy new cell phone pouch.

This one is the Swift Cell Phone Carrier from the book One-Skein Wonders, a great collection of patterns edited by Judith Durant. I added the stripes and the little leaf on the front. The yarn is the same as Lydia's hat, just because I'm totally stuck on that color combination. I wish it would show up in photographs as delightful as it is in person.

Hope she likes it!