Warm hands and puzzles

I'm feeling particularly triumphant about my latest knitting project. Made mittens for Peanut and not only do they fit, he loves to wear them. The weather has gotten surprisingly warm here and he's still wearing them, so we had to leave them at home.

These are made from some Mirasol Hacho 100% merino yarn I picked up in Oslo last winter. I bought 10 skeins and planned to make a sweater for myself, but it tuns out to be too colorful for my taste in big pieces. It is fabulous, though, for smaller projects, including this iPod Touch cover. The pattern is based on Elizabeth Zimmerman's 36-stitch Gloves in Knitting Without Tears. This books is fabulous for inspiration and generally encouraging you that you can knit anything. It's also fun to read and funny, which continues to surprise and delight me. My changes included sizing down for Peanut, using a smaller gauge, and adding the cable on the back. The details are on my Ravelry page.

We did not bring many toys with us for this year in Chicago. In fact, what we brought was books, a teddy bear, mouse, a game, and a couple puzzles. The puzzles are nine piece interlocking puzzles drawn by Dick Bruna. He writes the Nijntje/Miffy books and Peanut enjoys them a lot. I do as well because they're mostly written in verse, which is fun to read. We picked up the puzzles at a thrift store. After cutting the pictures out of the box, the box was tossed and puzzle pieces stored with pictures in a provisional plastic bag. This weekend, they got some serious attention from Peanut and mama. Peanut spent over an hour sitting at the kitchen table putting together the puzzles over and over again. Mama took a bit of time to make new bags for the puzzles.

Not a lot of sewing has happened around here since Peanut is still able to wear the light cotton pants I made last spring (and probably forgot to blog about). It was nice to sew even a little bit again and especially nice to be able to share that a bit with him. Sharing being pressing the reverse lever together after countless choruses of "why don't we touch the scissors?" and "needles are sharp!" We're both learning.