Fishy Knitting

The knitting for the fish blanket is almost done. I only have 4 more fish to go. That means that it is almost time to start on the Christmas knitting. Ideally, I have two projects I would like to finish in time for Christmas. The first is a pair of mittens for my husband's sister. She told me over the summer that she wanted me to knit her a pair of mittens. I brought her the Jameison and Smith color card and a pile of mitten books so that she could pick her colors and pattern. She chose a very simple pattern out of The Mitten Book by Ingrid and Inger Gottfridsson.



I'm not going to knit this exactly according to the pattern. We decided to add a corrugated ribbing cuff and a thumb gore. But the Fair Isle pattern on the hand will be the same as the one in the picture.

Starting this project gave me an opportunity to use a new toy: my yarn swift. This was a birthday gift last April, but this is the first time since then that I've knit with yarn that doesn 't come in balls. If you look at the bottom left corner of this picture, you can see the yarn all wound up into center pull balls. I don't have a ball winder so I wind the balls by hand. But the swift definitely made it go a lot faster!

This picture also shows my knitting seat, complete with my pile of finished fish.

Now it's time to cast on!