These Three Gifts

After the excitement of the Knitter's Fair, my brain was buzzing with ideas for my Kauni yarn and I think I've figured out what I want to do.

I really like the Kestrel's Alight motif, but I don't like the kimono design. I don't think it's one I'd be comfortable in or would suit me. What I'm thinking of instead is a pullover, with maybe some side shaping, and a very simple treatment of the edges using the purl when you can method. I puzzled over the side-shaping part for quite some time. I've decided to use a panel, as in the Sandy cardigan, and fill it with the leaf chart. As it decreases to the waist I'll prune out the branches and then grow them back in when increasing.

It's clear in my mind now, and I finished up some gift knitting so what do you think I cast on next? Yeah, not the Kauni. I started Durrow, a sweater for Jim. It was against my first impulse, but Jim's birthday is in November, and he really needs some more sweaters, and it seemed smart to knit grey wool while there's color on the trees and save the rainbow yarn for the dark days coming.

I've got three possible gift items knit up. My favourite, and least likely to be a gift, is these mittens:

Pattern: Komi Mittens by Charlene Schurch
Yarn: various sock yarns, all superwash with nylon
Needles: 2.5mm

I used sock leftovers of Trekking and Doug's hand dyed. I just love the color combo! It clicked. But I ran out of the Trekking so had to sub in some leftover Knitpicks Essential.

I still love these mittens. If I'm desperate, I'll use them for a gift. But even better would be for them to go in the family stash as a back up pair so no one in my house will go mittenless this winter.

I also knit a one-skein wonder scarf:

The ends aren't sewn in so you can see how close I made it. It's a shortish scarf, but the blues are pretty and the pattern is light and airy. See?

I have no idea what the yarn is as I threw it in my bag at the Needle Emporium's Tent sale sans-label.

I also made a Monteagle bag. It was fun, but... Let's just say, mine came out a bit different. Here's my advice to anyone trying this pattern using dish cloth cotton instead of linen: Go up a needle size! Or several! My bag is squat. Still serviceable, oh yes, but wide and not deep.

It looks like someone's idea of a crop top, yes? I screwed up somewhere because I had way too many stitches left at the top, so I totally improvised the handles. It's a working bag though. I loaded it with six big cans plus four regular sized cans and then shook 'em all about to lengthen the stitches. Nothing fell out (thankfully, because a can landing on my foot would have hurt!) Here it is loaded:

It just might be gift worthy.

In other news, some how the handle of my ball winder broke off. I have only myself to blame since I should have put away my toys when I finished playing with them. The good news is that one drop of advanced Crazy Glue seems to have mended the break. I wound six skeins of worsted tonight and it held. Whew!