Shhhhhhh. Christmas is coming.

If you can read this, you're not knitting.

Busy, are we?
I want to post so many little WIPs, but they are all part of a secret plan. I'm making alot of little somethings this year for Christmas, from a big something. Each for family members, so I cannot talk about just one.
After Christmas I'll post pictures and patterns.

Right now, I'll talk about my first Mrs. Beetons!

In part of an email from Amy from Creative Mom Podcast she was telling me how easy this pattern is, so I decided to give them a try. As I caught up on her past archived podcasts, I found she also gets a little passionate about these wrist warmers.

I love the idea of wearing something frilly with my jeans, tees and jackets. Just a little something to keep my wrists, and therfore myself, warmer.

The original pattern from Ms. Dayne calls for laces and beads. I dove in, though, with a tweed mix I'd plied up out of some thrifted yarns which were fingering weight and tweedy. Dipping the goldtweed yarn with flecks of red and yellow, into mixes of brown and green dyes created a really nice autumnal variegated yarn. Instead of the little beads, I cast on with a contrasting baby blue yarn plied with a twist of variegated (hand-dyed) string.

The overall effect was better than expected. The top bell used a mix of some frosty light brown lace yarn with tiny specks of gold threads mixed with the overdyed tweed fingering yarn.

The ribbed portion of the wrist used all three parts of the different ply yarns in the bottom bells.
One Beeton is done, the other are on the needles.

I just want to wear this Beeton a l l the time. I'm also dreaming of making some light blue tweedy ones now, using the yarn that edges these. It's a beautiful mix of light blue lace yarn with more of the nubby cotton "thick string" which I had handpainted in variegated shades of taupe, so the Beetons would have a colorway of power blues and variegated mauves.

AND, I have a bag of raw silk that might make some really interesting Beetons. About 6 skeins which I had eBay'd two years ago. All raw silk, that's both soft and nubby when knitted up. I'll start digging for a "ply" yarn and top bell to go with the silk.

This is all being dreamed up while I promise myself to make my first socks in January, along with a first spinning class.

And the yarn I'm lurking? It's called Gendarme
I keep clicking for it, dreaming of the socks this gorgeous colorway will make. Handpainted - $15 for a 4 oz skeins, so one should do the pair. Wow. Pretty, hay?

Oh, they'd make nice Beetons too.