Warmest Mittens

Happy first day of Winter, all! I'm definitely in full on nesting/hibernation mode these days. On Friday we went to Ikea and spent about $160 on a new bookcase, some curtains, and a bunch of picture frames. On Saturday we went to Target to get some more picture frames and also picked up another small book case. After unloading all of our books into the two new book cases.. we still have nearly an entire box of paperbacks waiting for a home. Ugh. When the hell did we get so many books? We have FOUR bookcases and apparently thats not enough room. I'm considering going through them on my break this weekend to sort out what can go into storage or different rooms. I'd like all my knitting books in the craft room (aka our guest bedroom). They could just go in a floating shelf in there or something.

Other then putting together everything and shopping, I baked for half the day on Saturday. Oh man. I made 2 huge batches of rice krispie bars, one with butterscotch and one with reese's peanut butter and some chocolate too. I also made a double batch of Russian teacakes and had my first attempt at buckeyes (basically peanut butter dipped in chocolate). Everything turned out awesome, except the buckeyes. I don't know if it was the recipe or if I did it wrong, but eh.. they're not my favorite. Also, I did get a fair amount of knitting done this weekend. I've been making steady progression the Log Cabin Afghan of DOOM, and am almost ready for another log. I've averaging half a log a night from about an hour of knitting. It will DEFINITELY not be done this year, but I'm hoping maybe by the end of January it will be. Realistically I have about 1100 yards left to knit on it at the bare minimum, possibly more. I'll take another progress picture in a week or two.

One thing I did do this weekend was make myself a pair of mittens. This was one of my 2009 knitting resolutions/goals, and I started and completed it on 12/20. Way to go, procrastination! Also, it figures that I make them when its 40+ degrees out, instead of a few weeks ago when it was record lows for a week straight. Ah well. After a very extensive search and a tough decision, I used the Warmest Mittens pattern. I used about 130 yards of two different colors of Plymouth Baby Alpaca (worsted). The cuff was knit on size 3 needles (my ribbing always runs HUGE) and the body was knit on size 6 needles partially because I'm a very tight knitter, and partially because I didn't have size 5 needles LOL.

The first mitten knit up perfectly, but the second.. well.. I was watching the Vikings game, and .. we lost. And my already tight-knitting got even tighter as the game went on, and thus, the mitten is a wee bit smaller. But, luckily I have small hands and both fit me well.

After adding another 130 yards to December totals, it brings my December yardage up to 1360 yards and my 2009 yardage to 7219 yards. Not too bad, and really it's a few hundred more yards then that, I just haven't added up the progress yardage for the afghan in a few weeks. My 2009 goal was to break 10000 yards, and while that definitely isn't going to happen, I feel like breaking 8000 is still a possibility.