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Captain Becky likes her mittens!

Her husband likes his too. And they fit!

Maybe I will make mittens for the cook and first mate too.

Anyway, boat trip was fun and I enjoyed this knitting project!

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Finished the second pair of mittens!

I hope they fit! And I hope he likes them!

And here’s some photos of the schooner.

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Mittens finished and blocked!

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Started the second pair of mittens. These are for the captain’s husband.

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Made thumbs. Still haven’t worked the ends in yet.

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Second mitten is knitted, still gotta do the thumbs though.

Did a lot of knitting today while hanging out at the Camden town landing at my friend’s mom’s booth at the Windjammer Festival.

I baked some blueberry scones (not pictured).

There were boats. And people. And good dogs.

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Left mitten done except the thumb. ( I always save the thumbs til both mittens are made so that I can do one thumb right after the other. They’re more likely to match that way. )

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I’m starting a new pair of mittens, to give to the new captain of the schooner I used to work on. She invited me and my fiancé to come out on a week-long sailing trip in September so maybe I’ll have them finished by then. Anyway I wanted a nautical theme but in a Norwegian style so I went to my new book of patterns

And found something that reminds me of a compass rose

So I re drew it with some changes and a lower stitch count because I’ll be using thicker yarn than the example mittens.

I knit the same cuff as for my sister’s mittens because I like that pattern and it’s fresh in my mind, then started knitting from my hand drawn chart and decided the stitch count was still too high so I frogged it back down to the cuff and started fooling with the pattern again.

I like this very much. The left mitten will have “LRF” (the initials of the schooner’s name) and the right mitten will have “1871” (the year she was built). For colors I’m going with grey (her hull color) and red (the color of her stripe).

There she is. Anyway the new pattern fits but now I’m not sure I love the way it is knitting up. I’m using fisherman’s 3 ply from BartlettYarns but I should have got 2 ply instead.

Oops. So it’s thicker and denser than I want and I don’t want to go up a needle size so I might re start these using the red from BartlettYarns and some grey from my sister’s sheep, that is a bit thinner than what I’m using and a different texture altogether so it could either be really cool or a total failure.

My sister’s yarn is on the right.

Anyway, I think I’ll try that and see if I like it and if not I’ll keep going with the original yarn.

Update: started over with my sister’s yarn and I like the outcome very much. The mitten is knitting up with a much squooshier texture that is also softer and more flexible. Sister’s yarn mitten is on the right:

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Knitted some baby hats this spring. The yarn was from my sister’s sheep, but commercially spun this time (in White River Junction, VT I think. I don’t remember the name of the spinnery). Undyed brown and white yarns, very soft and fluffy. The flowered hat I sent to a friend who just had a baby. The leafy hat was for another friend’s baby but by the time I made the hat the baby was too big for it. So I suppose I should knit a bigger hat before winter! And as for the small hat, someone else is sure to have a baby at some point. People keep doing that.

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This is the latest thing I have knitted. So, my sister raises sheep for meat and fiber. Last winter she decided to use up some fleeces that were not the right specs to be commercially spun at her local spinnery, and were not high enough quality to sell to local hand-spinners. So she drop-spindle spun this lovely soft white yarn and a coarser black yarn (the sheep are mixed breeds Romney/border Leicester whatever that means and this sheep has coarse guard hairs and she didn’t feel like removing them so the yarn is coarse). Then she asked me if I felt like making her some mittens with pretty patterns because I have more patience for that sort of thing than she does. So we pick out some patterns motifs and I do a swatch and it’s 5 stitches per inch on size 3 needles so the patterns we picked work perfect to fit the stitch count I need to fit her hands. I was going to do striped thumbs but then changed my mind and did the same pattern from the palm on the thumbs. I think the coarse black yarn will help these mittens be durable and hold up to being work mittens on her farm. The natural lanolin in the wool was nice on my hands when I was knitting and should be nice on her hands when she is working. Anyway, finished them in July 2024. They will be entered into the VT sheep and wool festival for judging this fall. My sister will also submit the remainder of the yarn for judging. Will update I suppose.