it's all about the shaping

Okay, so those odd bumpy red pieces in the knitigami post fold in half lengthwise and are intended to be felted and stuffed to make a 3D cardinal. Mine won't be felted or stuffed, but it's still perfect for what I want. I've never knit anything with such funky shaping and did not understand what I was doing as I went along, just made myself follow the pattern blindly. I had the wing and a good portion of the body done before I realized that the pieces would be folded along the center to achieve the intended shapes! There are some very minor errors in the freebie pattern, easily remedied with a little common sense (even WITHOUT a clue!), but it's still easy to follow. It blows my mind that someone could sit down with a 3D shape in their mind, deconstruct it into flat pieces and then knit all the curves and shaping right into it. I still need to make the tail feathers, but will do that in a different way than the pattern states because my cardinal will stay flat.

The other new project is a pair of Fanning the Flame mittens. I saw a pair of these while at a knit night at my favorite lys recently. I haven't ever done modular knitting, so thought they'd be a fun way to give it a try. I was a few fans into it when I realized it was turning out big. Decided that was no problem, maybe even a good thing, because I'd have enough room to line them with fleece for extra warmth. Thought it was curious that my gauge was so far off (no, I hadn't checked ahead of time), but kept knitting away on them, when suddenly it was as if my needles were made of glowing neon. I looked at them, really LOOKED at them, and thought, "Wait a minute, those aren't size 1 needles. They're size 3s!" Ohhhh, so the size 1s I stuffed in my bag to use on this project were not the same needles I actually pulled out of the bag when it was time to cast on. Cast-on and the first few fans happened while at the haunted corn maze Leah was volunteering at over the weekend, so with all the distractions of ghosts and ghoulies floating about, I didn't even think to check the needle size. I like 'em anyway. Ready to knit the fan with stitches for thumb placement.

Yesterday's experiment with the new oven was bagels. Scott got a kick out of shaping them and they turned out incredibly well. Here's the first batch, plain and sesame.

Some of the 2nd batch (garlic, poppy, everything), about to be baked in the heat of a wood fire. Oh so good.