Wrist warmers and lighthouses

It's about that time of year when I get the urge to knit or crochet.  Of course, since I do this so seldom, I feel like I have to re-learn all the little tips and tricks and I figured out last time.   I bought some chestnut colored Wool-Ease to play with and tried out a couple of fingerless glove patterns that I had saved some time ago.   The first is a knitted pattern called Malabrigo Hand Thingies that I used to practice the double-pointed needles knitting in the round.  Had to make three gloves to get two to fit, but these are really warm and snuggly.  They don't look much like the samples from knitters on Ravelry so I must have misinterpreted something in the way I did the slip stitch, but I'm happy with them all the same.

 

Next, I tried a crochet pattern that had been on my radar for a long time.  These are shell stitch wrist warmers by Drops. Kirsten first showed them to me, but the pattern was in German with a crochet diagram and I was too intimidated to try it.  The pattern has been translated to English now, and I am better at reading diagrams, so I gave it a shot.  It was still a bit difficult to understand, but I looked at the photos of finishes very closely and figured out what I couldn't follow from the directions.  After that, it was a breeze.  Crochet zips along so quickly that I finished these in no time.  Another very warm pair.    I might not keep both pair for myself, but I do like them both.

And not to neglect cross-stitch, I signed up to do a square for a lighthouse-themed quilt at World of Charity Cross Stitching.  The theme didn't appeal to me, but when I discovered I had a suitable design of just the right size in Sue Cook's "Wonderful Cross Stitch Collection" right on my bookshelf, I considered it an omen.  It's stitched on White Monaco.  I changed the blue sky background to half-cross stitch to make it go faster.  The effect of that is to make the lighthouses really pop.  Couldn't escape doing the porthole borders.  They were small at least.