A Sheep In Wools' Clothing

DD's Musica Wristers for a Music Major

DD is a music major.  Violin is her primary instrument, and she is sousaphone (tuba) section leader for the UMO Marching Band.  (She is known as the little tuba,   as she is more than a foot shorter than some of the other tuba players).

Given her major, and the fact that she is in marching band, symphony orchestra, Pep Band, a VERY active member of Kappa Kappa Psi (music service frat), it only seemed appropriate for her   new mitts from me to be of a musical bend.  Thanks to Ravelry's advanced pattern search, I was able to find this pattern (and it was even free) for the project.  I chose Shetland for the little bards on the fiber being able to hold in little airpockets of warmth... a nice feature up here in Maine during the winter.

Project Details:

Pattern:  Musica mitts

Designer:  Anne Neumann

 Yarn:  Fingering weight Shetland in black and cream

Needles:  Size 1 double points

The little extra I found to go with this theme for Kille is a treble clef shawl pin.  I knit her a stole/shawl before her first semester of college, to "wrap around herself whenever she needed a mom hug", and the shawl pin can go with that.  Now if I can find her a bass cleaf shawl pin as well....

Mittens, Mittens and More Mittens

Last year at Christmas time, when the wayward children were home for Christmas, I thought I had a plentiful mitten stash for building snowmen and going geocaching -
  WRONG!  My memories of how current the mitten supply and the sizes of said mittens were sadly off.

So, earlier in 2009, I decided I needed to make new mittens to keep visiting hands and geocaching adult aged kids' hands warm.  Not just   mittens, but all the awesome mittens floating around in Ravelry, on blogs and elsewhere on the Internet.  Mittens like Entomology by Adrian Bizilia, Holly & Poinsettia by Carol Sunday, Musica fingerless gloves by Anne Neumann etc.

Before Christmas, I got one Musica done, a pair of Entomology mittens done, several pairs of Maine Morning Mitts by Clara Parkes, and the yarn purchased for several other amazing pairs of mittens.  I don't have photos of the Maine Morning mitt pairs I knit, but I do have photos of some completed pairs and some   uncompleted to show:  including the very beginnings of a pair of Fiddlehead Mittens also by Adrian Bizilia using a Tanis Fiber Arts kits, and Sunday Knits' Holly & Poinsettia mittens published in Interweave Knits in late 2008 I believe.  The Fiddlehead mittens of this batch will be the warmest -  Fair Isle knitting and the mittens are lined as well.  The Holly & Poinsettia have Fair Isle cuffs and corrugated ribbing, but the hand itself is mostly   fingering weight wool, without texture, colorwork or lining for warmth.  It is appearing that the beautiful kit has extra of the colors, so I am planning on using leftover of the angora blend yarns in the kit to line the mittens to increase their warmth.  If I lived south instead of Down East Maine, it might not be necessary, but here, by the time I decide I want mittens, I need them to be really warm.  They are beautiful, though.