Things most people don't need in the summer

So I knit a pair of fingerless owl mittens! Purely because I felt like knitting something for hands, not because it's needed for any immediate use, especially as summer is in full swing right now.

Quick and easy :) 

For a Baby!

Protip at making friends at work: knit things for them!

I have a pregnant coworker and as I've never knit baby clothes before, I decided to knit some baby accessories for her! (As well as use up a ball of scrap yarn). Here's the link!

 

The hat was supposed to look more like a bear, but I think it looks more monkey-like because I put the ears too low. For the mitts, the blue doesn't contrast with the gray very clearly. Moreover, related to my last post, when I was on my second mitt, I was dangerously low on yarn ... so I decided I wouldn't have enough yarn to finish the mitt and changed the pattern so I could use blue to finish the mitt. As a result, the mitts are mismatched. I think it looks pretty cute though!

 

I learned to do something new too! It's called the duplicate stitch, and what I used to embroider the bear paw on ne of the mitts! I almost foolishly thought there weren't any other techniques I've had to learn yet!  

 

Wow, baby things are so small though!! I kept wondering if these can fit an actual human being! I can't wait til I have a kid of my own though! I want to knit more baby things!!

Hello, Neighbour!

I finally finished my latest project! It's My Neighbour Totoro mittens! I'm really proud of it because I think it turned out quite well despite the cuffs still being a little too loose (although tighter than my previous gloves) and there are little mistakes here and there (that aren't immediately noticeable thank god). I think the worst mistake though is that the left thumb is too small! Well, not exactly too small... I modeled it after my hands, and apparently my thumb is smaller than normal people's because some friends tried wearing it and they can't properly wear the left hand glove because they can't stretch their thumb all the way. The right thumb is okay though since I tried fixing it after realizing my mistake with the left. At least the mittens fit me perfectly.

Anyway, with these gloves I learned:

• Color stranding! It was really fun to do... but what I did not like was this: 
  
  That is one of the mittens inside out before weaving together loose ends. I was never really good at nicely weaving the yarn at the end of projects, but usually I only have to do 2-5 at the end. But because of color stranding, I ended up with this many! It became the bane of my existence. I wonder if there's an easier way where you don't end up with so much. If anybody knows, please let me know! There were too many long stretches of one color that I didn't want to do one long floater. I ended up just tying a bunch of knots instead of weaving each one because I'm lazy, heh (I mean come on, you can't really notice from the front!)

• Making an obvious right hand and left hand glove 
• 3 needle bind-off
• Reading a picture instruction

To anybody who wants to see the pattern, here it is! I tweaked some of the pattern because I wanted to get rid of some leftover yarn, but then was scared I wouldn't have enough to complete the entire project. And also, off topic, go out and watch Studio Ghibli movies if you haven't already! They're like Japanese Disney, and highly recommended!

My First Pair of Hobo Gloves

This was made last week, and its my first pair of gloves. I named them ... hobo gloves (because its fingerless and not very well made ... the fingers are really hard!) I don't know how easy it is to notice from these pictures, but each half-finger portion is varying sizes ... I learned off various Youtube videos again. The cuffs are also very loose. But.. it looks okay, and will keep your hands warm. For my first glove, I think it turned out great.

Things I learned:

• Using double-pointed needles
• Making fingers and the thumb gusset

This is it for the projects I made before making this blog! I'm excited about my latest project and will post it once I'm done!