Cold weather knits

Goodness me, it is cold.  Here in London we've gone from balmy, no-need-for-a-coat, blue-skied autumn to full-on winter,with icy winds, cold toes and hot water bottles, in less than 48 hours.

Last night (curled up under my quilt, in a corner of the sofa) I finished the second of these fingerless gloves.

They are made from Kaffe Fassett sock yarn using a free pattern from Ravelry, and are incredibly warm and comforting to wear.  They do come up quite short, and when I use this pattern next time, I will add more rows to the length of the palm.  These ones have an additional four rows to what the pattern specified, but next time I think I would add 12 rows.

I had to learn how to do a stretchy cast-off, so that the top of the mitts wouldn't pinch my hands, and from the plethora of online tutorials and videos, I found this one explained it all particularly well.

I love sock yarn with a passion, and have quite a bit of it - looking beautiful in a basket in the corner of the sitting room.  I enjoy knitting socks, but I am so pleased to find another quick and easy pattern for this fine, warm yarn. 

I do always get in a tangle with the Rowan sock yarns though, and this time was no different.  I don't know why.  I don't think I do anything different with them, but I am learning that I need to rewind the entire ball at the start of the project to avoid a frustrating evening of untangling messes like the one below.

So now I have warm hands, I decided I would like a new hat too.  Finishing a piece of knitting always makes me want to start something else right away, so I stayed up until stupid-o'clock last night rummaging around on Ravelry for a hat pattern I like, and deciding which of my yarns I wanted to wear on my head (whilst wearing my fingerless mitts, of course - the house gets cold once the central heating turns itself off).

I ended up casting on with this Rowan Cashsoft Baby DK in a beautiful shade of pink.  I am going to make a slouchy beanie hat, but given that my head is freakily big and I can rarely find hats to fit, it may end up more snug than slouchy.  No matter though - I shall be warm, which right now is my only aim.

You can find more details of both these projects, including links to the two patterns, on my Ravelry page.