FO's and a birthday

I've been in the midst of swap knitting on top of finishing other things I've been working on and today I finally finished my swap gift. The pattern is Ribbon Mittens (rav link). The color work technique is called Estonian Roositud. It was an incredibly interesting new thing to try and I'm really excited about the possibility of teaching a class on it. Basically you inlay the colors as you knit even though it looks like it is embroidered on afterwards.
I used Claudia's Hand Painted Felt Me in the Circus colorway and it was knit on #3 needles. Scrap yarn was used for the color work bits.

This swap is called Retro/Kitsch and is part of the Odd Ducks of Ravelry Swap group, which always has the best swap themes. This pattern popped up when searching for "Retro Mittens", I suppose I can see that.

Either way, they were fun to knit, but look at all of these ends to weave in! I'm wondering how awful it would be to say forget about doing that. Ummm, yeah probably not so much. They are drying after a much needed blocking and I'll weave the ends in tomorrow night and then into the mail by the 29th.

And then my Guernsey Wrap. What a smash! I'm sooooo pleased with how it turned out and this yarn knit up so well and then blocked out into this light, drapey and warm piece.

I'm in love with the amount of stitch definition I got out of it, and for being 40% angora it barely shed while knitting.

The pattern was very well written, and I can honestly say I wouldn't mind knitting it again.

I did have some issues with yardage and needed to omit a couple of sections and at the very end I didn't knit the last two rows so I would have enough to finish the garter stitch border and bind off. I did that math I mentioned, and math you failed me! Maybe it's because I told it to eff off in that last post, but oh well, it's finished.

Despite not knitting the entire pattern I was able to block it out to nearly the same size as the pattern said, I got 16"x73", definitely a good size. Looking back on the yarn yardage issue vs. the size I got, I wouldn't have changed my decision to add another 12 sts because the width is perfect.

Now it's time to go shawl pin shopping and I've got my eyes on this one, and this one, and how about this one too.

And a birthday...

for our girl, who turned EIGHT YEARS OLD yesterday! EIGHT YEARS OLD! Time flies. We had a little family celebration on Saturday night with lots of pie, pie for dinner, pie for dessert (and we've enjoyed pie for breakfast and lunch since then). Mom made chocolate pie and I made my Great Grandma's apple pie along with mini cherry pies that were made from the cheapest cherry pie filling, apparently the cheapest cherry pie filling is exactly what Marley wanted, full of goo. Beck and Wendy spent the night and they stayed up until nearly 1am even after we told them to GO TO SLEEP numerous times. Hell we weren't asleep either, but instead were catching up on Downton Abbey. All parties paid for the lack of sleep.

Declan took the kids to the City Museum on Sunday and Robin and I spent the afternoon knitting and eating leftover pie, actually that's what I did. The girl had a great day. I'm sure 8 will bring many new adventures and I can't wait to see them.