We're gonna need a bigger tree

 

We're definitely going to need a bigger tree!  

Guess that means I need to pause the mini mitten ornament knitting and go root through our storage units to find the Christmas stuff.  

It's starting to look like we may still be in this house for Christmas anyway so Mike can't complain but so much when I start dragging boxes of Christmas decorations in before Halloween. 

Meanwhile, I'm focusing on knitting mini mittens this week for Winterfest.  Thank goodness for my over abundant Wool of the Andes collection.  My love of buying random colored skeins is coming in handy!

And... Writing this post reminded me of the book, The Mitten.  Nana better be buying a copy for Hayden and adding a pair of mittens for her to the knitting list.  Actually, these ornament mittens might actually fit her. I'll have to check that out.

More mittens

First of all, thank all of you for helping me get over my desire to spend 1,000's of dollars and years of my life on TKGA's Master Knitter Program.  Signing up for it has been on my Someday to-do list for years.  Many, many years.  But I've never been able to make myself commit to doing it.  Now, if I ever find myself in the situation where I need that Master Knitter qualification, I can blame y'all instead of myself for not having it.  😁

I finished the red mittens and even blocked them.  I need real mitten blockers but I don't, or at least I haven't in the past, knit them frequently enough to warrant buying a set. 

Hopefully the photo's angle makes those mittens look so long and thin and my hands aren't actually that weird looking.

It's also a good thing I don't plan to knit more shawls anytime soon.  I have to block everything on my bed these days.  In the past I have always used the dining room table because the family was always happy to eat in the living room but with Hayden and her high chair....  The last time I used the table, I made sure my blocking mats were as far away from her high chair as possible but... Oops.  Spaghetti sure can fly long distances.

After the red mittens, I cast on a purple and white pair and spent an entire glorious cool, rainy fall day sitting on the very messy covered porch knitting and reading while wrapped in a blanket.  I even brought out, and lit, a fall scented candle.  It was awesome!

And then I watched a Hallmark?? movie and saw this sweater.  I must MUST have this sweater.  I haven't done a Ravelry/Google search for a pattern yet.  I'm trying very hard to stay focused on what I need to knit vs. what I want to knit.  And I really, really want to knit this sweater.  If any of you happen to stumble across a similiar pattern, please hook me up with a link.  I mean, it looks easy enough to design my own but I'd much rather have a pattern to blame if it doesn't look as good on me as it did on her.

Apparently, I'm all about putting the blame on others at the moment. 😏

Oh, and while I'm talking about random things...

Anyone else out there with crepey skin?  This Gold Bond Ultimate Crepe Corrector is some seriously amazing stuff.  It advertises visible difference in 2 days.  It took 3 days for me to see a difference but I could feel the difference in my skin after just one day.  The stuff is freaking amazing!  And I'm not just saying that because I've recently become an Amazon affiliate.  One application a day for a not quite two weeks and my skin has been totally transformed.  If you've got a crepe skin problem, give this lotion a try.

Mittens

I started knitting mittens recently. 

I cannot tell you how long it's been since I knit a pair of mittens.  Mittens with fingers, that is.  Once I discovered fingerless gloves, I never looked back.  But, I'm busy knitting for my Winterfest booth and I figured some people may want their fingers covered so...  Mittens with fingers it is.  

I can't believe how much longer it takes to knit that thumb and those fingers.  Fingerless mitts are SO much faster!

On a different note, I wanted to share a book I recently read with you.

I didn't think I would enjoy Constance, but boy was I wrong!  It's a story about cloning which is not my normal read.  It also takes place in the future, which is really not my kind of read.  But I was gifted a copy of Constance and I'm so glad I read it.  It was fast paced, not too sciencey, there was a little bit of mystery and murder and well, you should just read it yourself and see.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

What have you read lately that's out of charector for you?

And hey - my mitten and the book cover coordinate!  That was totally unplanned but I love it when things like that happen.

Smitten

 

Seventeen and a half down, fifty-four and a half more to go.

I'm not so sure how smitten I will be at the end of this Smitten mitten project but I am happy to be using up lots of odd balls and bits from my Wool of the Andes stash.

NaKniSweNope!

Are you doing NaKniSweMo?  I'd planned to.  I had the yarn and pattern picked out and at the ready.  I'd even balled the skeins of yarn, swatched, and set the proper needles aside for safe keeping.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I swatched!

And then I realized the reality of my pre-Christmas knitting.  NaKniSweMo quickly turned into NaKniSweNope! 

I'm knitting a pink Stroll Gradient shawl for my mother-in-law.  Pink is her favorite color.

I'm knitting the Mountain Colors scarf for my great niece.  And if I'm knitting something for the great niece, her brother will need something handknit too.  

The not so great cowl for Sarah got frogged.  She says she'd rather have socks.  It's a dammed good thing she likes to cook and grocery shop!  

There's the poinsettia needlepoint that needs to get finished and turned into a pillow.  

There's the two Christmas stockings that still need to be lined.

And last but not least, let's not forget the seventy-two Smitten mittens I need to knit.  And as if seventy-two mini mittens wasn't enough, I'll need five garland cords to go with them.

Yeah, NaKniSweMo is definitely a nope this year.  But hey, on the positive side, I've already got my Christmas Eve Cast On project ready to go.

Smitten

Please pardon the typos and any weirdness in this post. The house has used up all its internet for the month and I'm blogging from my phone. Which I've never done before.

 

I've started working on the Smitten mittens. Five down, sixty-seven more to go.

Good grief, I wish I hadn't calculated that!

Three on Thursday - Still only July?

Well, I'm still suffering from fall fever.  On top of wanting to wear jeans and flannel and sit around the fire pit sipping hot spiced tea, I'm also starting to crave candy corn.  I may not survive August at this point.

The fall fever may send me completely over the edge, but at least I can knit fall things while I wait for cooler weather.  Today's Three on Thursday is three mitten patterns.

Kindling Mitts by Helen Stewart

First of all, I love fingerless mitts.  Second of all, I Love cabled fingerless mitts.  And third, I LOVE the yarn used in that photo.  It just looks so soft and warm and I adore the tiny flecks of color.  These mitts are Kindling Mitts by Helen Stewart.  I've been on a Helen Stewart pattern kick lately.  I discovered her designs last month and Wow!  She's got so many wonderful designs.

Mittens Nomen by Dela Hausmann

I'm fascinated by how different the pattern in these Nomen mittens looks depending on the colors used.  I'm also obsessed with the color scheme on the left.  Oh, and this pattern is free on Ravelry.

Mittens that Never Forget by Elizabeth Lubowitz

I just love the elephants on these mittens.  Besides being adorable, they remind me of Hayden.  Her room is decorated with elephants.  I wonder if I knit a pair for her now, could I keep up with them until she was a teen and big enough to wear them?

Hope you'll join me over at Carole's for Three on Thursday.

Three on Thursday - Stash Busting

We're all stuck in our homes, the grocery stores are empty and our local yarn shops are closed. The only thing left to do is dive into that yarn stash pile.  Thank goodness for a giant yarn stash!  I don't know what those poor knitters who don't stash will do.  My heart goes out to them.

Besides stashing yarn, I'm also very, very happy about my tendency to hoard hand lotions.  My family have always made fun of me for it, or more honestly, been irritated with me over it, but they aren't complaining now!  With all this hand washing, we're going through some hand lotion!

But back to knitting and yarn....

What can we knit with all that stashed yarn?  Assuming the majority of your stash is like mine and made up of mostly fingering weight, single skeins rather than sweater quantities of gorgeous hand dyed yarns....  What can a knitter knit?  Other than the 10-stitch and mitered square blankets that instantly come to mind when planning a stash busting project, that is.  And free, since so many of us are out of work due to the nasty "C" word....

Yarn End Mittens by Kathy Lewinski

How about a pair or two of Yarn End Mittens?  They'd definitely be a great way to use up some small scraps of leftover yarn.

The Age of Brass and Steam by Orange Flower Yarn

Looking to use up a full skein?  How about knitting The Age of Brass and Steam?  As written, the pattern is for a kerchief but it could easily be made larger by knitting more pattern repeats.

Smitten by Emily Ivey

Or, perhaps you'd like to get ahead on the holidays.  This mitten garland would be adorable hanging just about anywhere in your house and you could even tuck little gifts or candies into them.  Individually, they'd make great tree ornaments and/or gift toppers.  The pattern is Smitten by Emily Ivey.

I hope you are all surviving this COVID-19 ordeal and will join me over at Carole's for today's Three on Thursday link up.  

Stay well, stay sane, and knit on!

Three on Thursday - Mittens

My three for today's Three on Thursday are mitten patterns.  Specifically, mittens with sheep on them.  I've been thinking that the next thing I should get into is knitting mittens.  And as things go, I read someone's blog post this morning where they were showing off their sheep mittens.  And also, as things go, I didn't note who's blog I was reading and now that I'm typing this and trying to give them credit, I don't remember who's blog it was.  I thought I did, but I was wrong.  

Anyways....  Three mitten patters with sheep on them for today's Three on Thursday:

Sheep Mittens by Jorid Linvik

I love these but they are probably a bit too challenging for me at this time in my life.

Sheep on Baldersnas by Lena Bergsman

I just love these.  The sheep are so funny looking.  Sorry, I don't mean to be rude to the designer but... It took me a while to see the sheep.  I kept seeing dog faces with squiggly lines that perhaps indicated the dogs were stinky.  Once I saw them as sheep, not dogs, they are definitely sheep, just not the usual breed I'm used to seeing.  Either way, I love these and the knitting seems simple.

Sheep Mittens by Anita Viksten

I love that there is a child's version as well as the adult's but this pair are probably also too difficult for me.  Well, maybe too difficult.  The tricky parts seem to be the Latvian braid and the 3-colored stranded areas.  It's been ages but I've knit a Latvian braid before and don't remember it being difficult at all once someone showed me how.  (Yes, it was so long ago, Youtube wasn't around to instruct me.)  If I've done it once, I'm sure I could do it again.  But those 3-colored stranded rows....  I have enough trouble with 2-colored stranded knitting.  I don't know about three colors.  But then, this is the year I promised myself I'd perfect my stranded knitting skills.  Perhaps I should add these to my Ravelry queue after all.

Join me over at Carole's for today's Three on Thursday gathering.

What's next?

I finished the Out of Winter shawl, and I'm almost finished with the Newborn Vertebrae and my Eclipse shawl.  Actually, Eclipse, as written, should have two more pattern repeats but I want it more scarf sized so I'm going to leave them off.  Plus, by leaving off those two repeats, I'll have enough yarn left for baby sweater.  Win/win!

Anyway...

Now the problem of what to knit next?  Obviously there will be a baby thing.  But I have a massive case of fall fever and want to knit fingerless mitts.  Plus, I got a new cable needle that I'm dying to use so....

So today's Three on Thursday is three pair of fingerless mitts I'm trying to choose between.

Te Ara

Te Ara fingerless mitts designed by Rachel C?  I really love this design and I have plenty of appropriate yarn.  And the pattern is free.  Yay!

Arden

Or Arden, another free design from Mikka?  These are worsted weight so they'd knit up faster.  Plus, I'd get to use my new snazzy cable needle.

faux cabled fingerless mitts

Or my old standby that I made up and know by heart so I don't have to bother looking at a pattern?

Decisions, decisions.

Join me over at Carole's for today's Three on Thursday link up.

Knitting with Bison

Remember my part bison yarn?

Fingerless Mitts

Like magic, it turned into a pair of fingerless mitts. 

The yarn is Tracks Sport from The Buffalo Wool Co.  I received it in my November socks kit from KnitCrate.  The yarn is a merino & bison blend.  Right off the skein, it was a little stringy and had a slightly stiff cottony feel to it but after blocking, it softened right up.  It softened up enough that there's no longer a question about whether they are destined to be mine or my shop's.  They are definitely mine now.

Do you notice anything odd about the cabling?  They are worked from the fingertips downward and I was binge watching Vikings while I knit the first mitt.  Apparently I was paying more attention to Ragnar than the number of rows I was knitting.  The cables got further and further apart as I knit.  Ooops.  But no worries!  I just did the same thing on the second mitt and am calling it a design element.  I actually kind of like it.

Octopi

Today's post will be about octopi because what else would I write about when I haven't knit a single stitch in four days?  Work has been crazy busy & the shifts have been long.  By the time I get home from work, I've only had seven or eight hours to eat, sleep, shower, eat again & get dressed in time to go back to work.  On top of that, it's been busy at work so I haven't had time to knit there either.  I'm starting to twitch from lack of knitting.  Or maybe lack of sleep.  No, I'm pretty sure it's lack of knitting.

So, what do I blog about when there's been no knitting for days on end?  Octopi!

One of my favorite supervisors defecting from  her life in Cash Control & moving out of state.  She has an odd octopus obsession & over the years, I've knit her a few octopus items.  Tomorrow is her last day & since today's my day off, I thought I'd quickly whip up a new octopus thing for her.  I hit Ravelry & typed "octopus" in the search bar .... and, well, I doubt I'll be giving her another hand knit octopus.  It turns out I've already knit her all the simple, quick-to-knit octopi.  I did, however, find some seriously awesome patterns that would have been a blast to knit.  If I'd started a month ago, that is.

Check out these awesome patterns.  There's an Octopus Tentacle Scarf.

 And there's this cool fair isle octopus hat.

And I found several different mitten patterns.  These are fair isle,

These are just textured knitting with what looks like bobbles,

And another colorful pair of fair isle mittens.

These would be great for using up little bits of left over yarn.

And then there's this free pattern for fingerless mitts which I absolutely love & may end up making for myself.

And of course there's octopus socks.

Look  how cute those socks are laid side by side.  They not only have octopi, they also have mermaids!

I can't fathom how long it would take me to knit these socks but I absolutely love them. 

And last but certainly not least, take a look at this octopus sweater.

It's knit in the round with stranded colorwork and the tentacles wrap around onto the back.

It's an octopus hug!

After looking at all these patterns, and wanting to knit them all for myself, I'm coming to the realization that maybe having an octopus obsession isn't such a strange thing after all.

Anyway....  Allison, we will miss you & we love you, just not enough to attempt knitting a pair of octopus socks in a single day.

And then there were 3

Three mittens being blocked.

And if knitting three mittens isn't weird enough for you, how about this.

A big chunk of that roll of toilet paper was trifolded.  Very neatly & precisely trifolded.  Weird.

Or is the weird thing the fact that I'm taking photos of my toilet paper?

I think winter has finally gotten to me.

Doh!

I finished Kate's mittens.  Or at least I thought I had.

knitting fail #33

Doh!  I don't suppose Kate has two right hands.

On the needles - Kate's mittens

One mitten down.

#todayontheneedles

One more to go.  It looks freakishly long, but it's not.  The mittens are being knit for a friend with hands a quarter inch shorter than mine and these fit me fine, except that they are just a tad snug in length.  I'm chalking the weird visual up to being because Kate and I are both so long and lean.

I think it's also appropriate to mention that I knit that mitten while watching North & South on Netflix.  You see, she may be my friend, but Kate is a Civil War re-enactor.  And a dammed Yankee!  I, on the other hand, was taught the words to Dixie in preschool.

And now that I'm singing "...wish I was in the land of cotton..." I'm off to knit mitten number two.  And maybe sing Henry the VIII, I Am instead.

On Being Thankful

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US of A and I'm counting my blessings.

First, there's my husband.  I know, I give him an awful lot of grief most of the time.  Today however, he's winning the Best Husband Ever! award.  He's doing the Thanksgiving grocery shopping.  Of course, I will have to do some serious sucking up when he gets home but serious sucking up is still way better than standing in a mile long grocery line.  And we may end up having steak, beer and ice cream for our Thanksgiving meal, but again, that's still better than me having to stand in a mile long grocery store line.

Believe it or not, I'm thankful for Walmart gym socks.  They always come with a very sticky label/band thing around them.  I always complain about the band because when you rip it off, half the sock fiber sticks to it and after I've thrown it away, the dogs always get the label thingy back out of the trash.  They leave it on the floor and I step on it, normally in the middle of the night, and then I'm left with a sticky foot.  But it gave me an idea of how to label the socks & gloves in my Etsy shop.  I created my own label bands.  Mine are not sticky however.

I'm thankful that I found four hats that I'd knit, stuffed in a drawer and promptly forgot about.

I'm thankful that my husband and I both realized that we seem to be outgrowing our clothes at the same time.  It makes it so much easier to try to eat properly when he's trying to eat properly.  And, he's buying us an early Christmas gift - a treadmill.  Running on a treadmill is unbelievably boring, but considering how out of shape I've become, it will be nice to use.  It's so much easier to get back into the habit of running when a treadmill is available.  I won't have to worry about the weather or the darkness.  I can run for 5 minutes 3 or 4 times a day if that's what it takes to build my stamina back up.  And I have to admit, I do enjoy watching the numbers click by.  And best of all, Mike will use it for walking.  We tend to get a bit competitive with our weight loss  So, if he walks, I'll make sure to run.

I think I'm thankful for this thread meant for cross stitching.

My plan is to knit with it.  Exactly how thankful I am remains to be seen.  But the colors sure are pretty.

And of course I'm thankful for all the normal stuff.  My family, our health, my friends, their health, a roof over my head...  I tend to take those things for granted and I know I shouldn't.  I have a friend who's spending Thanksgiving in the hospital with her child.  I have another friend, actually several, who have either recently lost their home or are fighting hard to keep their home.  I may bitch and moan, but I'm actually very thankful for the life I have.

I'm also pretty thankful for my four-legged children and the unconditional love they provide.  Not to mention their entertainment factor.  Today, I've been enjoying watching Minnie guard a paper bag full of empty notebooks that I keep forgetting to take to Good Will.

She's been sitting by that bag for over 5 hours now.  When Max comes to close, she barks her, "Get away from me!" bark.   I'd like to say that she won't let me come close enough to the bag to shut the file cabinet drawer or to put the vacuum away, but....

I'd also like to say that I'm thankful for the photos on this blog.  They show me over and over again what areas of my house need to be cleaned.

But mostly, I'm thankful for my husband for doing the holiday grocery shopping.

What are you thankful for?

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Birthdays & Fat Lips

We had a pretty busy weekend.  Saturday was Sarah's birthday.  I'm still struggling to believe that my little, bitty baby girl is 15.  Struggling even more with the fact that she can apply for her learner's permit this year.  Yikes!

As is tradition, to celebrate Sarah's birthday, we went out to eat.  The Chop House if anyone cares where.  While we waited for Sarah's aunt & uncle to join us, we played with the camera.  Here's Sarah, NOT happy to be photographed.  Or is that just her typical 15 year old face?

Here's the son we are so proud of.  He's wearing his serial killer face.

I'm very glad that glare wasn't directed at me!

I'm wearing my typical, "Hey - want to look up my nose?" picture taking face:

Somehow, Mike managed to avoid being photographed and Sarah provided one last pose before we settled down to the business of ordering our food.  She's doing her Twilight impression.

Sunday, Zack had another bowling tournament and I somehow managed to sweet talk Mike into taking him.  Zack's scores weren't so good, but on a positive note, I got about 4,593 loads of laundry done and quite a bit of knitting accomplished.

I finished a hat, treasure bag, wine bottle/gift bag, a pair of fingerless mitts and started another pair of mitts which didn't make it into the photo.  I love those mitts by the way.  It's going to be very hard to list them for sale.  I bought the yarn with a shawl in mind, but the yarn is way too stretchy.  Except stretchy is the wrong word.  More like, it's too scrunchy.  The yarn contains a lot more polyester than most sock yarns and I guess that's what gives it the scrunchy quality.  Whatever, it's like a rubber band.  Which means the ribbed tube looks like it would be tight on a toothpick and yet, it easily fits over my man-sized hand and returns to it's normal shape when I take the mitt back off.

As for the hat & treasure bag, I've been getting a lot of requests for Harry Potter color themed items.  Thus, a maroon & gold hat and a green & silver treasure bag.

The photoless mitts I'm currently working on are being knit with On-line Supersocke in the Winter colorway.  I LOVE On-line yarn and this is the last skein in my stash.  The knitting store where I used to buy it closed last year and the only other local shop doesn't carry it.  I hope I can still find it on line.  I love knitting with it.  It's self striping and rather thick as sock yarns go, which means, you can knit a pair of socks in a weekend.  Well, you can if you don't pause to do laundry or fix dinner.  But even better, the yarn wears well.  I've got a zillion pair of socks made from On-line and I wear them constantly.  Not a bare spot or hole in a single pair of them.

And just when I thought I was safe....

Every year, something goes wrong with my face at Thanksgiving.  I bump my head on an open kitchen cabinet and have a huge bruise, or the rosacea goes crazy and my face glows red.  One year it was so bad my eye swelled shut.  But this year, I've been really careful about closing the cabinet doors.  I've taken my medication and my face is actually doing fairly well.  I don't have pink eye.  Things were looking up.  I might actually be able to take a decent photo at Thanksgiving.

Nope!  Last night, I dished myself a bowl of ice cream and licked the ice cream scoop.  I could feel the scoop reach out & grab my lip and my unconscious response was to yank the scoop away from my mouth.  Now,  half my lip is laying in the kitchen sink stuck to the scoop.  The remainder of my lip looks like I've stuck a water mellon under it.  Sheesh.

Icy Lace

The Sunset Mittens are finished and are awaiting a photography session so that they can go into my Etsy shop.  They'll be waiting a while.  I found my camera, along with my phone, both with dead batteries, at the bottom of my purse.  The photos need to be taken outdoors to avoid indoor shadows and since we are supposed to get a couple of inches of rain today....   Hopefully I'll be able to sneak in a quick photo session between cloud bursts.  In the mean time, I should put building a light box onto my to-do list.

Wow, that's a very small picture.

In an effort to ignore the fact that I still need to frog & reknit Kate's shawl, I started a new shawl using Patons Lace in the Porcelain colorway.  I started it a few days ago and have been knitting obsessively on it.  I'm not sure why I bought the yarn in the first place.  Balled, it's not all that impressive, just as it's not in that teeny-tiny photo.  The colorway is blues and white and frankly, balled, it looks a bit dingy.  In the store, it sort of reminded me of faded blue jeans if I squinted my eyes just right.  But once I started knitting a lacy pattern with it, it turned into icy crystals.  It's beautiful and I think I'm going to be very pleased with the finished project.  The problem is going to be wanting to keep it for myself.  It was supposed to go into my Etsy shop.  I'm having that problem a lot lately.

Panic Mode

So, I'm in full knitting panic mode.  I've got way too many projects OTN and their unfinishedness is making me edgy.  Actually, more like full panic attacky.   I opened my Etsy shop back in August and I still haven't quite figured out  how to accomplish shop knitting while I knit for myself.  And now that the holiday shopping season is upon us, the kind folks at Etsy keep sending me  reminders to knit, knit, knit so that I have something in the shop to sell.  And of course I have these grand ideas about how I can whip up three or four shawls in an evening and if I drink an extra pot of coffee after dinner, I could probably knit a baby blanket or two as well.  Yeah.  Sure.  No problem.

So on top of having about 50 Etsy projects going on, I also have about 50 personal projects going on.  Well, okay, three personal projects OTN.  But way more than 50 still in hanks awaiting the needles and that's not even counting the Christmas gifts I hope to accomplish.   And then there's the Kate project.  I've promised myself I'm going to start the Kate project on Oct. 1st.   Meanwhile, I'm frantically knitting away at some of my OTNs trying finish as many items as I can before that 10/1 deadline.  Because once I start on Kate's shawl, I'm not going to work on anything else.  I'm afraid if I set Kate aside, even for only a moment, it will stay on the sidelines until the day before I've promised to have it in the mail.

So what exactly do I have on my needles and just how much knitting do I have to get done over the next five days?  Well, there's the baby blanket that I've stashed somewhere and can't seem to remember where, then there's the green Pi shawl from Hell

This thing has been in the unfinished pile so long I don't even remember what the pattern was and as you may or may not be able to see, the needle has come out of it.

Then there's the Lorna's Lace socks, which had also lost a couple of needles.

There's a heart shaped multicolored shawl,

A blue metallic shawl,

Game Day mittens,

Game Day scarf,

Ribbon Candy, of which I need at least 15,

A linen stitch scarf, which I'm super excited about although it knits up even slower than I run.

Did you happen to notice a theme with those photos?  Besides the theme of bad lighting & blurry photo taking?  Ah  yeah.  Anything with an "s" on the end, means I have a whole other one to knit.  As in, a second mitten,  a second sock & 14 more ribbon candies.  And did you notice the fact that the shawls were only measuring 5 or 6 inches while the scarves had less than an inch done so far?  Uh, yeah.  There's going to be a few late nights over the next five days.

And then there's the Kate project:

Although I'm complaining about knitting this, I'm actually looking forward to it.  The light pink yarn is the main color and it's to die for.  It's a simple pattern that should knit up rather quickly.  It's just that I'm going to have to do a bit of math before I start knitting, thus my aversion.  Once it's cast on though, I know it will be a happy knit.  I would like to get at least one of the above finished first though.  Wish me long, sleepless nights.