Music and Knitting

~~Music~~

Since I have been in college, I have spent many of hours at my computer, headphones in, and Pandora running. I love Pandora, my favorite site on the net and most of all I love that you input 1 artist and it leads you to so many other great artist…Ani Difranco, Portishead, Isobel Campbell, Cat Powers, The Watson Twins, or Emiliana Torrini.

But my favorite artist is Hope Sandoval aka Mazzy Star. Oh how I love her voice. Her version of Arthur Lee’s Five String Serenade is absolutely beautiful!!! While Five String Serenade is my favorite, I love many other songs by her. Wasted. She’s My Baby. Give You My Lovin. Be My Angel. Oh so many good ones. I highly recommend looking into Mazzy Star if you have not already. Create a special station just for Mazzy Star and sit back and relax……glass (or two!) of wine is recommended. She makes the perfect late night knitting music as well.

~~Knitting~~

Beginning to plan out my Winter knitting projects. So far I have 1 hat and 1 pair of mittens down, many more mittens, sleeves of a baby sweater to finish, and oh yeah, do afterthought button holes and stitch on buttons on my cardigan.

So I can cross 2 projects off my “To Knit” list while many others wait to be started/finished/frogged……we’ll see!

New hat for Miss L. The pattern is my own based on the knowledge I have acquired over the years of making hats. Yarn is Patons SWS in Natural Plum (1 skein) comparable to Rowan Tapestry as far as fiber content but a bit more scratchier and less yardage.

Matching mittens to go with her hat. Pattern is very loosely based off of 49th Parallel Mittens from the book Twelve Months of Knitting. I basically used the pattern as a jumping off point for sizing. Worked 2×2 ribbing for 3.5″ to keep the Ohio Winter chill out as well as a much tighter gauge (7 sts/inch on size 7 needles) to keep her little hands toasty. Did a “hat decrease” (that is what I call it) for the top of the mittens beginning with 30 sts and working k4, k2tog around; knit 1 round plain; k3 k2tog around; knit 1 round plain, etc. Miss L. absolutely loves both of them and I am happy I finally made 1 of my kids a pair of mittens. Hopefully this little kitten doesn’t lose one.

(For some reason I absolutely love this photo! I love the softness of the photo mixed with the softness of Malabrigo.)

And lastly a hat for Miss K. that I am starting. We’ll see how it goes as there is cabling involved but it will be really cute once I can finish it.