January Randomness

It is 2011, I am still in shock.  By June 2012 I will be an empty nester, as much as I thought I would look forward to the freedom, I don't think I will like it very much.  Have I ever said I have the best sons in the world and I am so very proud of them!!

The one thing I knit for Christmas was for my youngest son.  He came to me at the beginning of December and said his hands were cold.  I jumped at the opportunity to knit for him.  Trying to be all casual I asked him if he would like some gloves.  He did but he wanted his fingers free.  I quickly pulled up Ravelry and with the lightning speed of a regular user, I had fingerless gloves for men pulled up.  As we scrolled down, he quickly picked cigar with mods, but he just had to have the same yarn, knitpicks Wool of the Andes. Two weeks later I had the yarn, with two weeks to go, I started to knit, hoping my hand would be ok.  His mods included only 2" of ribbing on the wrist.  We picked the large size based on his hand width.  he wanted all the fingers to end at the first knuckle.  As I started to knit the hand and have him try it on, we did other mods. On the second set of increases I used the medium size, on the thumb I allowed all the stitches for the large size.  We skipped the strips, of course he wanted all black, he is 16. I knit the rounds for the small, all fingers I allowed the medium size.  I liked the way they came out, he is very happy and I finished the knitting on Christmas eve!

My only complaint was with the yarn.  I was surprised at how much it shed.  I probably noticed it more because it was black.

This caused me to spend some time on google looking up information about mills.  Interestingly most of what I found was about mills in the US that have closed.  I found that they used Sulfuric Acid to remove debris and neutralized this with baking soda before dumping it in ponds.  I also found they soaked yarn in a chemical with the dyes.  The land of these mills was toxic and have required clean up.  This concerns me as a knitter, as someone who is chemical sensitive and for our environment.  Especially so when so many yarns are made overseas and we don't know what they are using or how they are dealing with the waste. 

Last but not least, I finally took the time to develop my Artfire Studio  you can go there and read my blog about my New Years Resolutions.    What have you resolved to do this year?

Ok this is really last, I also treated myself to a gazing with Braco  I owe my Step mom lots of gratitude, she told me about him and we went together.  I am sure this is not for everyone.  All I can say, it was the best gift I have given myself in a long time, words can not adequately describe the experience.