Mittens for Akkol Campaign Contributions

I should write stories about the trip to New Zealand, or some of the other things I've been doing, but I'm still busy playing catch-up with my life.  So this will have to do for now.

After I was insulted twice in the blog for another charity, I was told about Mittens for Akkol and how they knit woolly items for children in orphanages in Kazakhstan, and for mothers and babies in "baby houses" there.  Since I have a lot of wool yarns on hand because of the previous charity's needs, I decided to switch and knit for this group.

I found out about them barely in time to contribute to the last campaign.  This time, I was almost too late even though I tried signing up immediately.  Some of those ladies are quick!  I was able to send these items:

Toddler hat at left was made from a free pattern on KnitPicks, out of leftover bits of 100% wool yarn.  The picture seems to be of the back seam, sorry!  It is very cute and very thick, will be nice and warm for a small child.  Also stretchy, thanks to the garter stitch, so not to be outgrown soon.

The yarn from the hat was originally part of the blanket below.  The other charity wants bigger ones that MfA does, so I ripped back the partly-done blanket and finished it at the required size.  It's a couple oddballs of shaded yarn done in two-row stripes, surrounded by aqua handspun and handdyed wool yarn that was a leftover in my wool basket.  I think it's pretty cute.  I folded it in half for the picture so I could get a closer shot:

They also wanted baby sweaters.  The first one is out of sock yarn, from a cute pattern and on US#2 and US#1 needles.  This is the three-month size, and I used a ball of striping yarn and a partial ball of the solid.  It was great carry-around because of its small size, but tedious:

Note that I changed the closure from loops to a proper placket.  I did something similar on this cardi, which is six months size and adapated to use some Limbo, a discontinued 100% wool yarn I had in the stash.  I just made pieces that reached the recommended measurements, sewed it together, added the borders and then added buttons from my stash.  They happen to be rose-shaped.

The socks below were knitted on two different choir tours!  One on the tour of Argentina in 2008, and

the other on our tour of New Zealand this year. I kept meaning to get the second one done..... Basic toe-up pattern, using SWS (Soy Wool Stripes) yarn in "Natural Earth" and US#4 and US#5 dpns.  They fit my foot and I do the K2P2 ribbing so they will stay up better on a leg, and stretch to fit different sizes.  I actually had a repair job to do after the second one that I will write up in another blog post.  They are fraternal because the balls started in different places in the colour sequence and to economize the yarn so the socks could be as tall as possible, I didn't get too particular.  This yarn is 70% wool and 30% soy and too warm for me to wear as socks.

Package was mailed with my usual prepaid, pre-addressed postcard for the organizer to send back so that I know it arrived safely.  She does post a list of packages as they arrive, but I got used to adding the postcard and it's a nice extra confirmation.

More photos of things I have created recently (I did a LOT of knitting and crocheting on the NZ trip) and my yarn purchases, the sock repair, yet to come.  Plus some tour reports, with lots of pictures!