Too Hot to Handle

Oh yeah, these are going to get that "you are so awesome mom I love you" reaction. And I am already started on the other glove with over 2 weeks left until Son #1's birthday.

I named these Burnin' Hot Hands because you know, the flames and stuff.

I used the chart from Melanie Gibbons' Hot Rod Socks.   Here are my notes on how I made these: I used two circular needles with 32 stitches on each needle.

• Using Black, cast on 64 sts, knit 12 rows in 1x1 rib in black
• Knit 1 round
• Work the chart from top to bottom for the wrist
• Knitting only in red, knit 32 sts, place marker, increase (I used a right leaning increase), knit to end. 
• Knit 2 rounds. Knit to marker, increase (I used a right leaning increase), knit to last st on first needle, increase (I used a Left leaning increase), knit to end. 
• Repeat previous 3 rounds until there are 19 sts after the marker.
• Knit across 32 sts, slip marker, work 1x1 rib across 19 sts, knit to end. Repeat this round 3 times.
• Knit across 32 sts, remove marker, bind off thumb sts (I used Jeny's Super Stretchy Bind off), and knit to end.
• Work the chart from bottom to top. 
• Knit 1 round in black.
• Work 4 rounds of 1x1 rib, Bind off using Jeny's Super Stretchy Bind Off.

Really fun knit, and it actually didn't take very long. I might need to make some of these with pink flames for myself!

And for another finished object, the Marigold Bear from Fiber Trends.



This was a commissioned project for a newborn baby girl. The shaping is amazing and the pattern was pretty easy to follow. I’m not a big toy knitter and I’m not too fond of felting, but this turned out very cute. It took about 10 hours to complete, including felting. Good to know if I'm thinking about a gift. Everybody loves teddy bears!

As well as those two projects are going, I'm sad to say progress has completely stalled on my Swirl Shawl. Knitting one swirl a week seemed like a reasonable goal until I take into account certain factors that are prohibiting me from making any headway. One factor is that I need 45 minutes of sitting time where I am not doing anything else besides watching a cool science fiction series (which was the case a few times but that hasn't been an opportunity lately). The other factor is, I need to put down the other cool projects that I will actually finish in the near future and not 6 - 7 months down the road. The swirl shawl just doesn't have any motivation going for it right now. It is not the kind of project that fits into my current schedule/lifestyle and I just need to accept it and put it on hold until it's a more do-able project. I think I'm throwing in the towel on my Dreaded Knit commitment. Don't judge me...

Looking forward to podcasting tomorrow! Search Yarn on Tap on iTunes to find the podcast.