In Time-Out

Everything I'm knitting right now is in various states of time-out. Aaauugh.

First, let me introduce you to an about-to-be-modified FO:

Slim's Felted Mittens (Just Like Dad's)
The Pattern: Double Cuff Felted Mittens from Knit One, Felt Too
The Yarn: Leftover Bemidji wool from the Cap'n's felted mittens and Brown Sheep Company's Lamb's Pride Worsted
The Colorway: Light grey and Prairie Fire
The Needles: US11 Susan Boye aluminum DPNs and US4 Clover Takumi bamboo DPNs
Time: 9:30am Wednesday to 2:30pm Thursday

The Cap'n did the knitty math to figure out how to size the pattern down. I also modified the rate of decreases so they didn't come out as pointy as the bigger ones. These didn't felt as much as the adult-sized mittens I made, even though they went through an entire wash cycle.

Yeah, as if I'm going to get a shot of these in use. Slim won't/can't put his hand through the ribbed cuffs. Maybe I could get them on him asleep, but even then I think the cast-on edge of the ribbed cuff would cut off his circulation.

Aaaugh.

So I'm thinking I'll cut out the cuffs and reattach the I-cord directly to the felted mittens. I'm still not sure how I'm going to get him to keep them on, though. Time-out for the mittens, at least until I come up with a good idea on how to fix these.

I also cast on for the Monkey socks with the Claudia's Handpainted. After a good evening of knitting, I was through two repeats on the foot (I decided to try them toe-up), and the pooling was undeniable. All the earth brown was clustered on one side and all the purple was on the other.

Aaaugh.

I ripped those back to the toe and tried the slip-stitch rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, because the book noted that it is good for breaking up color repeats in variegated yarns. It was better, but still not as good as I had hoped. And I just wasn't that crazy about the slip-stitch rib pattern with the Claudia's.

The toe-up socks went into time-out in the frog pond. But I would not be deterred.

After searching online, I kept coming across raves about the Jaywalker pattern and how it works great with variegated yarn. I know, I'm really late to this party. So I cast on again, this time for a top-down 84-stitch Jaywalker. I'm using 2.5mm instead of the 2.25mm called for in the pattern, but I also read that this tends to be an inflexible sock.

Any votes on how this is going to work out? I'm on a strong anti-pooling streak. Partly to take advantage of the beautiful colors of this Claudia's, and partly to prove to the Cap'n that it can be done. He hates variegated yarns because of how the colors stripe and pool.

I'm also still working on the Feather and Fan scarf for LAAuntie. That's on partial time-out just because I'm annoyed that I can't get the rest of the knots out of the yarn.

Aauugh.

P.S. No baby yet.