Here are some other mittens from the past. These aren't the best photos unfortunately but I tried to fix them a bit with Paint Shop Pro.



This is knit in a wonderful angora/wool blend - the pattern is Harald's mittens from Elsebeth Lavold's first book. I have no idea where these mittens went but I hope they went to my friend Joelle. She's an animal lover and equestrian and always appreciates exotic fibers. She doesn't even knit but loves to attend Taos Wool Festival to buy fun handknit and handspun garments.









These are Meida's mittens from Folk Knitting in Estonia. I knit these for my friend Gracie in Richesse et Soie (ultra-luxurious cashmere blend).









Here's one last NFA mitten - the Vinternatt mittens done in Rauma Istra.

A few years ago I was all about the mittens.

From the left we have the Halland mittens from Folk Mittens, Nordic Fiber Art's Solhav mittens, NFA's Rosebord mittens, two mittens from a booklet called A Year of Mittens (Patternworks may still have it), and NFA's Frostrosen mittens.

I'm still unenthusiastic about my knitting. Tomorrow I'll be in Santa Fe and maybe I'll check the yarn store there for inspiration.

Jean asked in the comments yesterday to see a close-up of the red Spontaneous Scarf. This is as good as I can do unfortunately as the scarf is long gone. I gave it to my best friend in Colorado as it matched her winter coat.









I need to go bake some bread so I'll wait until tomorrow to find more photos. In the meantime, go check out Stasia's free pattern for Valentine's mitts.

Lately I'm uninspired. I only bought two knitting books in 2004 - that is easily 10% of previous years. All of the really popular yarns today make me gag. The last issue of a knitting magazine I received (Cast On) was almost immediately tossed into the garbage. I can't remember the last time I saw a pattern I really had to make. sigh



I wish knitting magazines and publishers would start coming up with new stranded patterns. I've knit most of Nancy Bush's designs. I've knit all of the Nordic Fiber Arts mitten kits. I've It seems even Dale of Norway is producing fewer really lovely stranded designs these days. I often consider actually writing Nancy Bush, Alice Starmore, and Anna Zilboorg and asking them to please design more complicated stranded colorwork knitting projects. I'm withering away here...



Some of the responsibility is mine. In 2004 I spent way too much time doing knitting I wasn't interested in. I didn't challenge myself enough and I didn't do a single project with many colors (i.e., over a dozen). Whenever I knit with that many colors I find myself completely enchanted with the project.



I was looking through my projects for the previous years and have found they absolutely dwarf the projects for 2004. So this week we'll be taking a tour of past projects and why they turned me on. Perhaps that will rid me of my malaise.



Here we have the Dale baby sweater with the bunnies and ducks. Okay, so it needs steam blocking and the yarn I used was quite slippery and the ends kept working their way loose but I loved every second I worked on it.







Here's my very first Spontaneous Scarf and my favorite. It is hard to see in the photo but this is an example of the pure and vivid colors you can get when you do tone on tone colorwork. (Pattern is from an old issue of Spin-Off and each seed stitch row uses a different yarn.) I need to do another tone on tone project.







More tomorrow...

Joanne asked me what yarns I've used for the designs in Folk Knitting in Estonia. I have substituted various fingering weight yarns with success except for those designs using Tuna for some reason. Those projects turn out smaller than expected when substituting fingering weight yarn. Here's the list:



2 pairs of Laila's Socks in Brown Sheep Wildfoote



Tiit's socks in Wildfoote



Sander's mittens in Virtual Yarns Hebridean yarn and size 3 needles to size up pattern to adult



Landra's Gloves in Stahl Baby Merino (old Elann closeout) and size 1 dpns



Meida's Mittens in Richesse et Soie (cashmere/silk) and size 0 dpns



Kristi's Mittens in Elann's baby cashmere and size 0 dpns - turned out small



Kalev's Mittens in Nylamb (old fingering weight wool/nylon baby sock yarn) and size 0 dpns - I only did 5 1/2 chart repeats to make them fit



Helgi's Mittens in Nature Spun fingering weight and size 1 dpns - gauge was off and they turned out smaller



Liidia's Gloves, Nylamb (see above) and size 0 dpns



We had a lovely walk today around the University of New Mexico campus. Albuquerque weather really sucks in July but it is always nice to be able to get outside and do things in January. Today it was about 50 degrees and sunny.



UNM is an architectural masterpiece so do walk the campus if you're ever in town. 40 of the buildings were designed by John Gaw Meem who is renowned for his Spanish-Pueblo building style.



Here is Meem's Zimmerman library. DH says it is quite difficult to build adobe walls that slope inward like these.









Here you can see the Sandia Mountains in the distance.









Here are the soccer fields in front of some dorms.