another "pointless" project

as promised, i bought the yarn to finish the hand warmers yesterday, and this morning i finished them up! details!

Fetching
designed by Cheryl Niamath
published in Knitty (Issue 16, Summer 2006).

knit in Classic Elite Waterlily (2 skeins #1995 "Azalea", 100% merino wool) on US 5 Crystal Palace double points.

this was a fun little project. it was fast and pretty easy. the 4x1 rib and cutie cables make the knitting interesting even though it is easy. i even managed to learn two new techniques: picot bind off and knitting a waste yarn in the middle of a project to be unzipped later and used to pick up stitches. both were pretty cool.

my only complaint is that the designer claims the project can be made with 98 yards of yarn. i bought a 100 yard ball and ran out 2/3rds of the way through my second warmer. this was especially vexing because i knit these a needle size smaller than the pattern calls for in order to have smaller hand warmers (the circumference in the pattern is 7" at the wrist, and my wrists are only 5.5") to fit my wee hands.

it isn't that big of a deal... i'm thinking about picking up one more ball and knitting up a pair as a gift. several of my girlfriends like purples, so i am sure i can find a good home for another pair of Fetching!

also, there is now a more masculine version of this pattern by the same designer called Dashing. also published in Knitty. you can view it here.

related but not...
this project once again drew rude remarks from people who think little handknits are pointless.

i have noticed something of late.... there are a lot of knitting naysayers. i know i talked about this recently when i started my koigu socklets, but i feel it needs to be brought up again. mostly because it is knitters delivering put-downs to other knitters. that is messed up. enough non-knitters don't understand the appeal of the craft and make snide remarks about why anyone would ever want to knit something they can easily buy; we don't need knitters judging each other.

i bring it up because someone told me hand warmers are stupid. yeah, so? i'm making them because i like the yarn. oh, yeah... and i also like to knit!

that's okay, right?