Jumping the gun, maybe

I have to say that if I'd intended to shame myself publicly into finishing some projects before casting on new ones, y'all didn't help much with shame generation. There was, instead, a remarkable encouragement of project proliferation. Nevertheless, I felt a bit better about casting on for a new project once I'd finished those others.

Especially since this new project seems to be going exceedingly quickly. Behold, the first Kitten Mitten.
(Modelled by Younger Daughter.) These mittens are more fun than a barrel full of actual kittens. In knitting them, I'm beginning to get a handle on what kinds of stranded knitting I like. To wit: two-color stranded knitting. By this I mean not just two colors per row (although I admit to liking that quite a bit; three+ can get a bit overwhelming), but just two colors altogether. It's not a matter of how it looks - I really love the rich multi-color looks of turkish and fair isle knitting - it's more that with three colors there's fiddling to be done. I can't seem to get into a rhythm with three+ colors the way I can with two. It's very much like beaded knitting; I love the results enough that I will continue to do the knitting, but the knitting itself isn't soothing in the same way that other kinds of knitting (read: lace, and, apparently, two-color stranded knitting) are.
I love these cats (and I love the pin on my bag - another new one). I'm hoping that my niece will love them, too, as these are for her. In theory, they are a Christmas present. (Perhaps now the title of this post will convey some foreshadowing.) But here's the thing. I'm going to see her this week (and can I tell you how excited I am about that? I don't get to see my niece nearly enough for my taste), and I'm zipping right along with the second mitten. Maybe she needs to have them now? You know, just in case of sudden cold weather in Ohio prior to the holiday season? Wouldn't these be perfect Hallowe'en mittens, what with those cats and all?
And check out that fish skeleton! Very spooky, and Hallowe'en is my niece's favorite holiday.

I do realize that we're really nowhere near Hallowe'en, and that, in fact, most of the country is suffering a heat wave of epic proportions. I'll be honest, I'm just really hoping that she likes them as much as I do, and I'm selfish enough to want to give them to her in person. We'll see. I suppose it will depend in part on how much knitting I can get done tonight and tomorrow on the drive north. We certainly have some good audiobooks ready to go (I'm downloading them now); Lene just wrote a blog post today extolling Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, and was so convincing that I promptly went over to Audible to download it. I've got Younger Daughter convinced it'll be exciting - I'm pretty sure Older Daughter will be quickly won over.

This is our first trip north since Grandmom passed away, and we're heading up for her memorial. It will be wonderful to see everyone, and very strange not to see Grandmom. We get back on Monday and I start teaching on Tuesday, so I will probably be offline until the end of next week. I feel like there should be something better to say to end this post, but can't think of what it might be, so I'll just let it stand at that.