Woolgirl Oz Sock Club - Tin Man

Yep, I fell apart a bit.  I've been distracted by all of the usual holiday tasks and consequently have had a lot less knitting time.  I've fallen behind on photos and such, too, but I finally have some to share of my penultimate Oz Sock Club kit - featuring Tin Man!

************ Spoilers from this point on! ************

The kit contents:

This is definitely one of my favorite kits!  The project bag is large with drawstrings to close it.  The heart-shaped tape measure is attached to a long cord, presumably for wearing around your neck if you choose.  The decorated red heart tin came with some little Hershey's kisses inside, and the little metal notebook holder has a spring-loaded cover that's held shut by the matching metal pen.  All very useful swag!

The pattern made me want to cast on immediately!

It doesn't look complicated, but it looks interesting with the different textures and matches so well with the yarn.

And the yarn:

Macaron MCN by Wool Candy!  The MCN is for Merino, Cashmere, and Nylon and it feels wonderful.  I love the muted colors and I have a feeling these will be another pair of socks that get a lot of wear.

But I restrained myself.  I haven't finished my Lollipop socks yet; in fact I haven't even worked on them in weeks since I'm trying to wrap up some Christmas gift knitting.  So the Tin Man socks aren't anywhere near the needles yet, but I might get to start them sometime around the New Year.

Mitten Distractions

I've been a bit distracted by some necessary destruction to keep our house steadily heated through the winter...

...so the blog posts have fallen a bit behind.  But of course I've still been knitting and I started yet another project.

Fiddlehead Mitten #1

Fun and colorful mittens from the kit I purchased at Stitches Midwest 2010.

I got to work my first i-cord cast on and I'm pretty sure I'm going to find a way to use it again in future projects.  It's slow, but it makes a very neat edge.

i-cord cast on edge

And they're stranded, so I've been practicing my 2-handed knitting again with the background color in my right hand and the pattern colors in my left.  I still haven't mastered the tension in my left hand, so I've been using an inexpensive Knitting Thimble to help me along.  Instead of using it to separate multiple colors, I run the single yarn through both guides to help keep it from slipping too loosely on the left side.  It might be an odd way to do it, but it's really helped me keep the yarn in my left hand without constantly fiddling and trying to find a good way to hold it.

Inside out

I haven't quite finished the outside of mitten #2 yet (they're lined with another smaller mitten inside) so they haven't been blocked.  My stitches aren't as even as they should be, but I'm working on it and hopefully a nice soak and block will loosen them up and even them out enough.

I'm hoping to finish up the outside of mitten #2 in the next night or so.  With the Holidays and the end of the year looming these will probably have to be set aside for a bit to make time for deadline knitting soon.