It's what's on the inside that counts

It all started with wonderful Fleece artist kit that I purchased from my LYS last month to make a pair of Thrummed mittens.
The kit has a great handpainted worsted weight yarn and kid roving dyed to coordinate.

Thrummed mitts are actually a Canadian thing. They have been around for a few hundred years in Northern Newfoundland and Labrador. Bits of fleece were added to the inside of knitted items to add warmth.

After several false starts (a.k.a. frogging), I finally settled on a technique to make the thrums and to thrum a stitch by following the instructions from Biscotte and Cie.
Another great tutorial can be found on Hello Yarn but I did not follow that technique to knit the thrums.

I found that it's best to make a few dozens of thrums at a time.

After knitting a 2 ½ inch cuff, I started to insert thrums every fourth stitch and every fourth row. 

Even the thumb is thrummed.(try saying that three times in a row!) Looks really great on the outside, wait till you see what's on the inside!

How crazy is that? 

Over time, the thrums will felt to eah other and to the knitted mitt to form a warm felted layer on the inside of the mitten. But to help things along, I intend to wet the mitt and start the felting process by gently rubbing with a bit of soap and hot water, just to make sure that the thrums are lined up properly and don't felt in lumps...I would hate lumps on the inside of any mitts.

I intend to make more of these. Too much fun.

On fire!

This was such a fun knit project. It's nice to knit something quick when you also have long slow projects on the go.
I hand dyed the yellow mohair / wool yarn with oranges and reds, keeping some of the yellow untouched earlier this year.


Mixed it with black 100% wool yarn and knitted this hat in two evenings of movie watching!

Top of hat is very interesting with a petal shape or star shape design. Love it!

I am tempted to knit another one but to change the black designs with elements of this other hat I knitted last year.

Pattern is Fake Isle Hat by Amy King. I used 4 mm needles. Lots of yarn left over for a pair of mitts.

Here comes the fall!

I am not a big fan of the fall season, I much prefer the winter months. I think that it's the rain and the shorter evenings that I object to.

But on a beautidul day like today, what's not to like.

We have had a doe with her two fawns visiting almost every day lately. They come for the apples in the apple tree by the house. The fawns are so much fun to watch, they are playful and energetic.

With the cool weather of the past few days , a knitted hat was on the knitting list. I had this hand dyed yarn. It's a mohair and wool blend that I dyed this summer.

And mixed with black wool yarn I had on hand it became this Fake Isle Hat. You can find this pattern on Ravelry here.

The top looks like a star. I blocked it this afternoon and it fits me just perfect.

I think that a pair of matching mitts would be really nice to have. Thanks to Ravelry, I might have found the pair that I will make to match this hat.

Energized!

What do you do with boring black, grey and white yarn that has no life and no hope of ever being knitted?
I could give it away or trade it or ignore it for a while longer. But the most fun solution is to overdye it.
This yarn is a wool and angora blend. I have almost 5 ounces of it.



I had several leftover KoolAid colours and Easter dye colours in jars from my last dye job. I figured I might as well put those to good use.

So I handpainted it and microwaved the yarn to set the colours. And VOILÀ!

Lots of life and energy. Now it looks like a lot more fun to knit up.

I might use this energized yarn to knit up a pair of mittens. It would be nice to match it up with a solid black.

What would you knit with it?