We have some prizes coming in for Mitts for Mary, besides my koigu.

Stephanie is offering some lovely handmade soaps.

Nada is contributing 4 ounces of custom dyed bluefaced leicester wool yarn!

Pamela is giving a lucky winner choice of her patterns.

Thanks so much for the support. Now we need some knitters!

When I was photographing the blue faroese shawl last week, I noticed little marks on my windowsills in the dining room.

Clark loves to stand at these windows and watch the world. Now I see he’s chewing on the cedar in the windowsill. Chewing on it. The teeth marks go all the way across both windows. My dog used to chew on wood and I thought that when he went to his wonderful new home, we’d be done with this. My girls didn’t chew on wood. At spinning group last week, a few women said that their sons chewed on wood as well.

What’s the deal?

Is it a gender thing more than a genus thing?

My internet-shy-friend-that-used-to-be-neighbor had the most excellent idea last week. She suggested hosting a knitalong for Mary, and I’m going to do it. Here’s the deal.

I want as many pairs of hand knit gloves, fingerless gloves, and fingerless mitts as possible. I don’t think she’ll get much use out of full mittens so I’d prefer not to have those. She wears gloves when she’s outside, and the fingerless mitts (Fetching from Knitty) when she’s inside. She works in an office, so she’s mostly inside.

To recap, Mary has an incurable medical condition where her body thinks it’s freezing to death at any temperature under 72 degrees, so all of her blood is routed to her vital organs, and her extremities will eventually die if she doesn’t keep them warm. She needs to wear gloves all the time, every day, about 10 months out of the year in this climate. Maybe even more. She’s wearing the black, Cashmerino mitts I made her in October every day, and relies on the $2, stretchy variety of gloves found at grocery stores everywhere when she’s outside.

I want her to have a wide variety of beautiful handwear. She’s never going to get better. This is never going to go away. She’s in her 30’s. It sucks.

We are knitters! We can help! It’s what we do!

My blog has a wonderful group of readers, but we’re small, so I’m asking people to talk. Spread the word. Get it out there. I would LOVE to have a lot of participation, and to prove it, I’m offering prizes. From the gloves/mitts that I receive, I will randomly select winners. I don’t know quite what I’m thinking yet, or how far it will go. It’ll probably depend on the level of participation, and I’ll happily take suggestions, but so you know, I’m thinking Koigu.

Yes, it’s that important to me.

I’d like to give the gloves to her before the end of the school year, so the deadline is June 15th. Here’s a link to today’s post.

Email me to sign up, comment to this post, whatever you’d like to do.

I’ve started my fingerless gloves for Mary.

I’m going to separate the cables into the four fingers before binding them off. Right now, I’m looking to start the thumb gussset. I’m winging it and it’s been awhile since I made gloves, so I need to consult a legitimate pattern for guidance. I ended up going with the bigger needles, and as predicted, Hayden is laughing at me. In fact, I’ll quote her exact words-

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
(breathes)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

Thanks for that.

UPDATE- I forgot one thing. Her left pinky finger is a lot shorter than the right one. She asked me to make even the fingerless glove shorter on that pinky. She has small hands anyway.

If we want to have pattern conversations and suggestions in the comments, that’d be great.

Also, since I’ve already updated this post about 5 times since posting it, it’ll probably continue to change, so check back for the latest info.

Feel free to comment to any post with progress or ideas throughout the next month. I’ll be doing check-ins on Fridays. If you send me links or pictures, I’ll post them then.

We’ll have a name and a button soon. I’m thinking “Mitts for Mary” or something like it.

Mary doesn’t know I’m doing more than knitting her a pair of fingerless gloves.

Her measurements are-

Circumference at widest part of palm – with fingers together – 19 1/2 cm both L and R

Base of palm to start of fingers – 10 cm both L and R

Middle finger length – 7 cm L, 7 1/2 cm R

Ring finger length – 6 3/4 cm L, 6 5/8 cm R

Pinky length – 4 1/2 cm L, 5 1/2 cm R (notice they’re different)

Between the base of the thumb and the start of the index finger – 5 cm

PATTERN IDEAS SO FAR-

Chevron mitts This one’s being made already, but it’s SO NEAT!

Fetching This is what I made her in October, but I’m sure they’re thrashed, and I know Mary likes them.

Knucks

Vintage Mitts

Gorgeous Smocked Gauntlets (I want these myself)!

You can do what I’m doing and make up your own, based on the general construction of another pattern. I’m using the eyelet gloves in Gathering of Lace.

There’s also a great basic and adaptable glove making article in an older issue of Interweave Knits. I don’t have time to hunt down which issue right now. Maybe later.

Good morning! I had a good week. Not as fantastic as last week, but it was still good. Which is very good considering I only met my calorie target 4 out of the last 7 days. And this weekend is another doozy. I’m hosting a baby shower here at 11. Tonight I’m going to a pajama/birthday party for a friend, where we’re all supposed to bring our favorite breakfast food to share. There will be donuts.

And I don’t think they’d be interested in my protein shake. What do you think?

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and we’ll be at my in-laws for a large, social dinner most likely. I’ll get through it the best I can.

I’m down .6 pounds from last week. I went up a bit after the weekend, and it took the week to get it back off. I’m down an inch in my hips, up a half inch in my waist, and my chest and thighs are the same. However, My thighs look different to me. Those nasty little pockets of pudge just below my butt are smaller, so I’m probably balancing out the loss with growing quads. (I’m doing lunges). In the front I’m noticing a difference, too. There’s a very unattractive line of sag, low on my stomach that is softer. A little less defined. Woo hoo!

I’m very happy I was able to exercise this week. My back is better. My hip and knee are behaving for now. It’s good!

How was your week?

Happy Mother’s Day!

I’ve officially decided that I’m going to knit Josephine, and I’m going to knit it small.

It’s in the new Interweave Knits. I love it. I can’t tell you how much, but I so love it. I’ve picked the yarn, but can’t decide on a color.

And I’m recruiting. My friend Carol is knitting it with me. Hayden my love, are you going to knit it with me? (Hurry up and finish that sweater)! And I’m trying to tempt my sister. She lives in Texas, but I think this could be an appropriate knit for San Antonio. She’s all but given up on knitting since moving there, (I will never live somewhere warm. That scenario is just too horrible to consider) but she made a hat for her darling new husband during their freak ice storm a few months ago. (Good job!!!)

I’m going to knit the 44 inch bust, because I’m already dropping inches (tho’ not so much in the chest yet), and I figure my “skinny” bust will measure 40. Right now I’m at 48.

I really don’t know much about ease, and how much ease I like. I tend to like things snug at the bust (be quiet, Julie), but the next smallest size is a 40 inch, and I’m going to need to wear a shirt under it. So 44 sounds like the best bet.

I have to finish a couple things first. Like the fingerless gloves I haven’t started yet, and the Uptown Boot socks.

No, this isn’t a pregnancy announcement.

I’m just noticing that one box of something isn’t always enough to feed the family anymore. One pan of meatloaf doesn’t quite cut it. Last night, one box of linguini wasn’t quite enough to satiate the crowd. It’s weird.

I bound off the faroese shawl last night, which required breaking into the last skein of yarn on the last quarter of the bind off. That really sucked. I could have returned that skein and bought something else! But no.

After it was done, Hayden and I agreed that it shouldn’t be blocked. I’m concerned about it being too big for my mother-in-law, plus I really like the three dimensional texture. Hayden liked how the bind off was a bit wavy, almost a ruffle.

And I know you all want a model shot, but keep in mind this is, like, 10 inches too small for me so it looks ridiculous.

Experiencing the sudden wave of freedom associated with finishing something, I turned optimistically to the Uptown Boot socks, wondering where I had left off.

That would be the picking up of the gusset stitches. So my celebration was short lived and quickly turned to annoyance. Picking up gusset stitches is my second least favorite part of sock knitting, the first being the actual starting of the sock.

I hate starting socks. It’s tempered by the excitement of starting something new, breaking into a new skein of yarn, etc, but I hate it for the first couple of inches, every time. I always question my sanity, willingly knitting something with toothpicks instead of needles, as it flops all over and drops tiny little stitches.

Well, picking up gusset stitches required too much concentration for me last night, so I didn’t knit anything after binding off the shawl. I don’t really remember what I did.

Oh! Not true. I remember. I started swatching for the fingerless gloves for Mary. And I don’t have the swatch to show you. I sent it to school with Liv, to give to Ana, to take home to Mary so she can tell me if she likes it before sending it back to school with Ana, to give to Liv, to bring back to me tomorrow.

It’s kind of a crazy little swatch, with a couple of snake-like cables running up the hand. I intend to split them off in the direction of each finger if she likes the pattern. But I’m still kicking around whether or not to go up a needle size.

Hayden laughed at me. I swatched on size 2 bamboo, frogged, switched to size 0 steel, frogged, and started on a steel size 1. And it might be too stiff. I don’t know. But if I go back up to a 2, Hayden will ridicule. In a loving way, of course.

Why is it so hard to eat? The weekend was bad because I had a social dinner all three nights. So I went over my calorie target by a bit each night, but not nearly as much as I would have without the diet. And I’m learning. But then Monday came around, and I’m back to struggling to get enough. Dinner ends up being a big, calorie catch-up meal after eating almost nothing during the day.

This is ridiculous.

So I’m trying to focus on eating smaller, regular meals throughout the day again. It isn’t that hard, I just have to pay enough attention to the clock to notice when mealtimes come and go.

On the faroese shawl, I’ve finished wrapping up the pattern diamonds, and I’m just doing a few more rows of seed stitch before binding off.

I’m so excited. I want to get back to my Sea Silk Stole, the Uptown Boot Socks, and I need to get started on those fingerless gloves for Mary.

Things are great this week. It’s warm and beautiful outside. Clark slept well last night. My back is all better. I was able to do a TON of housework yesterday.

After being on my feet all day, I sat and knit on my mother-in-law’s shawl last night and this morning, and am well into the edging. I can see the end! Very exciting.

Today I have to make sugar cookies for a church function tonight. We’ve had 70 women sign up, so there will be at least that many there. That’s a lot of cookies. And I’m on a diet. What was I thinking?

Nate and I have started doing day-dates. Since he works from home, he’s been able to schedule a couple hours a week to go out, and we save the money and hassle of finding a babysitter. Last week we went to Moorehaven, which is a fantastic spread of ponds, unique animals, gardens and such. It’s lovely. They sell fish, supplies, and foliage for ponds. There is one pond there with enormous fish in it. I don’t know if you can see it, but the black fish in the bottom of the picture has to be around 3 feet long.

I was emailing with one of the mom’s from Liv’s class last week, and she thanked me for the mitts I made her in October, and said that she wears them every day.

(If you recall, she has this weird medical condition where her body thinks it’s freezing to death at any temperature under 72 degrees, and routes all of her blood to her vital organs, leaving her appendages in the lurch. So basically, her fingers will die and need to be amputated if she doesn’t wear gloves all the time. That’s horrifying).

Considering it’s spring, I thought that she should have something to wear that’s a little brighter and cheerier than black Cashmerino, so I bought some green Koigu (lucky girl) to make her a pair of fingerless gloves.

Do you have any great pattern suggestions? I don’t have one in mind, so I’ll be winging it otherwise. Koigu is fingering weight.

Wow. What a week. I’m totally bugged I couldn’t exercise after Monday, but my back is a lot better. I’m hurting at the moment sitting on a barstool at the computer, but I am much better now than I was on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I’m still in love with CalorieKing. It’s been so interesting to see how calories and nutrients add up in a day. I’m not struggling as much to make it up to my recommended calories, but I frequently have a couple hundred extra at the end of the day, so I enjoy a hazelnut steamed milk, or an italian soda sometimes. Thursday night, I had 32 Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate baking chips (those are the big ones) and was still in good standing with the diet. How is this possible?

Also on Thursday, I wore a pair of jeans that I haven’t been able to wear comfortably in several months. It felt really good.

I weigh 222.6 today. Which means I’ve lost 2.4 pounds this week (only exercising once, remember) for a total of 5.2 pounds in just shy of two weeks.

I thought it would be more, since I was 221.8 yesterday and I’ve been going down every day. But last night we had people over and I ate a very heavy dinner, plus one cookie which put me over my calorie target by 190 calories. I was going to walk it off on the treadmill later, but by the time they left, I was really tired, so I just went to bed.

So here we are again this week. I’m eating more. I’m losing weight. My calorie percentages are as follows

50.8% from carbs
23.9% from protein, which is a little higher than recommended
25.3% from fat

CalorieKing is awesome. It tracks everything. Here are my nutrients averaged since I started

Daily Averages

food calories: 1,798 cals
exercise minutes: 22 mins
exercise calories: 116 cals
net calories: 1,682 cals
fat: 51 g
saturated fat: 14 g
carbohydrate: 231 g
sugar: 80 g
protein: 109 g
fiber: 26 g
sodium: 2,365 mg
potassium: 1,246 mg
calcium: 1,481 mg
iron: 6.3 mg
zinc: 2.4 mg
cholesterol: 122.6 mg
effective carbohyrate: 182 g

This is so cool. And again, it’s easy because they aren’t telling me what to eat. I can eat what’s available (making healthy choices, but still) and I’m losing.

CalorieKing also tracks measurements.

I’ve lost 1/2 inch in my chest
1 1/2 inches in my waist
1 inch in my hips
and 1/2 inch in my thighs

since last Saturday.

I can tell, too. The past few days, when I’ve put my hands on my hips, my waist has felt smaller. You can imagine, I’m sure, how nice that’s been.

Blah, blah, blah. Me, me, me. I’m sorry. I’m just so excited. I’ve been stalled out for SO LONG. Months at a time of checking in every Saturday at Health Group only to say, “I’m a loser. I haven’t done anything. I’m eating bad, I’m not exercising…..”

I’m happy to have something different. And I’m thrilled that it’s been so incredibly easy. Surprised that it’s been this successful. Fascinated by what I’m learning.

So, I’m going to try to exercise today. Lightly so I don’t mess up my back more. There’s a big family dinner tomorrow and I’ve discovered over the past two weeks that social eating is when I have trouble. I’m going to try really hard not to blow it.

How was your week?

I played around with an edging idea yesterday.

I’m giddy.

Speaking of giddy, be sure to come by tomorrow for Health Group. I can’t wait.

Speaking of giddy, Ellen’s Majacraft Rose was lovely last night. (Thanks Ellen)! I spun on it for over an hour. I spun silk, a targee rolag, silk blends, some corriedale top, and some of the gorgeous kid mohair fleece I have. Straight from the locks. I just fluffed them and spun away. It was beautiful.