week nineteen

I'm about four weeks on from the last time I posted any knitting projects. It's been a summer of sewing for the most part, but that doesn't mean that I haven't sat down a bit with needles and yarn. I have only a couple of small projects on the needles and a pretty empty mental queue at this point, which seems about right if I'm going to try making any knitted things as holiday gifts this year. 

I've been enjoying the chunky texture of this hat as it comes to be. I love the subtle peeks of purple in the otherwise sky blue base. It should work up to be an interesting looking fabric that I think will match my dusty purple winter coat really nicely. While I really like the driftwood Lykke needles I'm using, I'm finding that I wish I had a circular needle of the appropriate size instead because of the cabling. It gets a little bit fiddly, and this is supposed to be my easy project!

And speaking of fiddly, I have finished the body of one fingerless glove so far and have a start on the second. I will leave the thumbs (my least favorite part) until last. I am very happy with the way the colors are looking with the pattern, and super impressed that some of the complicated looking details are so easy once you know how it's done. I'm solving some knitting mysteries here, people. I've really enjoyed working on these so far, but I definitely needed to switch over to the chunky hat or risk stopping knitting forever! That's a (slight) exaggeration, but my hands and my brain really craved a simpler more mindless piece to break up the counting and yarn wrangling this pattern requires. 

mandarin votter

Vacations are for knitting! This is Dave's happy face when I finished the second thumb and his mittens were all but complete. Worth every stitch. 

I started these just a few days before we went to visit his folks for the holidays and ended up taking them with me to work on while there. Not airplane knitting, but definitely couch knitting. (Maybe someday I'll want to do serious color work on a plane, but I'm not there yet.) I finished them a couple days before we left for home.

This is another wonderful pattern from Arne and Carlos in their book Favorite Designs that Dave got me for my birthday. I've had an A&C end to the year for sure! They are called Akle Mittens and use a diamond motif found on traditional tapestries hung in Norwegian homes (or so the book tells me). The pattern says they are sized 'for women and girls', but since finished measurements were also listed, I ended up making the girls size for Dave. These would fit me too. Maybe they like their mittens very large? Or they have large hands? Regardless. These fit. 

I used the same leftovers from the hat I made for Dave in October plus some white I had as one more accent color and the blue I bought last month for the background. I really like that blue, especially with these colors. I did not end up using up any of these yarns so I added one more leftover to the stash, but I still think this was a marvelous stash buster project as I had all but one of the yarns already handy and ended up with these fabulous mittens. In the balance there is likely less overall yarn in the stash. 

There were, as I told Dave this morning with yarn needle in hand, approximately 35,000 ends to weave in. But I ripped off the proverbial BandAid and sat down to do it last night as soon as we finished unpacking. I managed to finish one mitten before declaring defeat and heading to bed. The second got finished before breakfast. Just look at how satisfyingly neat the insides look. The double thickness of wool will make these especially warm. 

The knitting went fairly quickly because, unlike most of the Christmas balls I've been working on, there was no float twisting required. Since the floats are relatively short the way it is designed, I could just set up with one yarn on each index finger and knit away. In that way I think this pattern is actually a really nice one to start learning stranded knitting. 

Mandarin Votter is Norwegian for Tangerine Mittens, to go along with the Tangerine hat. Of course, since these are some of Dave's favorite colors these mittens will go with several of his other hats and scarves as well. For blocking I did a quick press with a hot iron and a damp cloth around the mittens. These are comfortably snug right now so I didn't want to stretch them out anymore like I did the stranded mittens I made for myself. In this case I think they will loosen a little bit with use to be perfect. 

It is no exaggeration to say that these were one of my favorite knitting projects ever. I love the geometric design, making them was relatively easy (it's always hard for me to do thumbs), and they worked up fast. VERY satisfied.

Pattern: Akle Mittens from Arne and Carlos Favorite Designs book (my Ravelry page)
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca in 'Barley', 'Grove Mix', and 'Persimmon', Patons North America Classic Wool in 'Winter White', and Cascade 220 Heathers in 'Blue'
Needles: US 2.5 and US 4 dpns

freja

I was right, my favorite part of these mittens are the fussy little thumb motifs. I think I like the on on the right best (the one with the thumb not flipped down), but they are both pretty awesome, nonetheless. 

I knew I needed to block the mittens when they were done, but I wasn't sure quite how. Some determined searching online got me all sorts of information on blocking techniques for mittens, but the simplest sounding one was the following: cut cardboard to appropriate sizes and cover with packing tape. 

It may look a little funny, but it certainly worked like a charm. My tension wasn't that bad (if I do say so myself), but the curlicue motif on the back of the hand especially was a little bit lumpy and uneven in places. Now? You'd hardly know it. Blocking is magic. 

Also good to know is that blocking helps stranded knitting grow. I was a little concerned that the mittens were snug on my hands when I got them off the needles. Trying to avoid the same issue I had with my last socks being a little big, I thought I'd erred and gone too small. But once these were dunked in water, the yarn got so soft and stretchy that I was almost worried they'd be too big! 

I was very gentle when putting the blocking templates in, especially making sure to not stretch out the ribbing too badly, and then I worked the fabric up and down rather than stretching side to side in order to even out the stitches. After a few days of drying out, I tried them on and they fit like a glove! Well, a mitten. 

Pattern: Freja by Emmy Petersson - free on Ravelry (my Ravelry page)

Needle: US 1.5 (2.5 mm)

Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Sock in 'Lettuce' and Serendipidye King's Mountain Sock in 'Claret'

fair isle fanatic

Wednesday, I started a thing. 

Yes, those are leftover balls of yarn from past projects, and yes I'm patting myself on the back for yet another scrap buster project in the works. These vibrant colors are going to work themselves into some stranded colorwork mittens. I had so much fun with the little bit of fair isle in the socks I just finished that I wanted more! I've had this pattern in my Ravelry favorites for a while, saving it for the time when I felt like I knew what I was doing enough to try it out. They are deliciously complicated looking, but really not that bad. Or I've improved a lot in my knitting skills. Likely both. 

In just TWO afternoons I had a finished mitt minus thumb. I can feel it in my hands, for sure, but the knitting was just so addictive. The best part so far is the all over heart pattern on the palm, though I suspect I'm going to like the detail that goes up the thumb even more once that's done. I also love the color combination and how the green pops against the plum background.

Going to rest my hands a little bit after the ill-advised marathon on these, but I'm heading out on a plane soon so I still want to take something along. Maybe if I take something that isn't on tiny needles and doesn't require carrying a color in each hand I'll be better off. I don't think the Shetland shawl is a good candidate since it's at a pretty fiddly stage of development, so it's back to the stash to sniff out a new project!

mittens managed

I took my parents and nieces over to Half Moon Bay on their visit earlier this month. A visit to the coast obviously demands a stop in the yarn store, so we meandered into Fengari so I could show the girls all the yarny fun. While I'm sure we all would have liked to take home everything, I let my nieces each pick out a skein of Malabrigo Mecha to take home and suggested I could make them mittens from their pick. Bonus, I also got to show them how my ball winder and swift work. Fun!

Samara is super into rainbows and dragons right now. It was really hard for her to pick out a color, but I showed her this variegated one because somehow the sooty overtones to the rainbow also suggested 'dragon' to me. She agreed, and I found a simple mitten pattern with some details that remind me of the spikes along a dragon's tail. There is a central knit stitch that is flanked by seed stitch triangles along the back of the hand. I REALLY like how these turned out and am bookmarking this pattern for future reference! The color worked up fabulously and I think they look funky and awesome. 

Pattern: Tolten Mittens (my Ravelry page)

Needle: US 9 dpns

Yarn: Malabrigo Mecha in 'aniversario'

On the other hand (no pun intended), Jasmine wanted a solid color and was positive she wanted teal. Teal, turquoise, blue-green, green-blue, whatever I call it she's into it. It was harder for me to pick out a pattern for her, but I settled on this cool swirly rib. The pattern calls it a "cross stitch 2x1 rib" but it's really just 1x1 cables going up the mitten. They look a little strange off of a hand, but once you put it on the rib stretches out and you can see the whole pattern better. I think the chunky yarn is shown off really well and the semi-solid color makes it not too busy. This one was fun to knit and easy to memorize. I had Mom measure her hand and text me measurements, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed I got it right. 

Pattern: Shelburne Mittens (my Ravelry page)

Needles: US 9 dpns

Yarn: Malabrigo Mecha in 'teal feather'

My original plan was to whip these up while they were still out in California, but that didn't happen because we packed a bunch of other things into our evenings. Still, these only took me a couple days each and I'll be able to pack them up with some hot chocolate packets and bookstore gift cards so the girls will be ready for the colder weather when it comes to Chicago.