Tuesday, December 30, 2003

Kristi's Mittens

I wish all of you a Happy New Year full of time to knit. I also wish that the knitting book publishers and magazines will start to provide some challenging patterns. Here are my 2003 FOs:

4 Sweaters & Vests - Dale of Norway Sirdal cardigan, Starmore St. Enda, gray vest, Dale of Norway baby cardigan #12406

9 Pairs of Mittens - Child's mittens, Meida's mittens, Lavold Harald mittens, 2 pairs child's bunny mittens, Vinternatt mittens, Turkey Mittens, Paradoxical Mittens, Kristi's Mittens

6 Pairs of Socks & Slippers - Fuzzy Feet, Spin-Off Entrelac socks, 2 pairs adult bunny slippers, Blackberry Ridge Halloween socks, Aran Sandal Socks

6 Scarves - Red Spontaneous Scarf, Brown Spontaneous Scarf, Blue/green Spontaneous Scarf, Koigu Cross Stitch Scarf, Multi-Directional Scarf, Red & Blue Spontaneous Scarf

11 Hats & Headbands - Bea Ellis Telemark headband, 2 children's Bunnies & Carrots hats, 4 adult Bunnies & Carrots hats, Zilboorg Cone hat, Turkish Infant Cap, Shadow Hat, Wellington Hat

1 Pair of Gloves - Sanquhar gloves

3 Miscellaneous - 1 lizard, 1 mini-bunny

HAUNTED MITTENS




Here is the first Kristi's mitten photo. The pattern is from Nancy Bush's Folk Knitting in Estonia and is done in size 0 dpns and Elann's baby cashmere. The yarn is a bit hairy (due to the alpaca) and inelastic but it held up remarkably well to all the problems that needed fixing. I initially made some weird mistake at the beginning of the cuff which I couldn't ladder down to fix for some reason so I ripped the whole thing out. Then I managed to forget the entire center row in one of the early pattern repeats so I ripped out the mitten a second time. Then I must have ripped out the two different yarns unevenly because when I picked up the yarns each color was on a different row. It took me a while to figure that one out. duh

So I finished the second mitten. What is wrong with this picture???




Yes, that's right - I made two left mittens. sigh So I ripped that out and here's a photo of the mittens done the right way. You'd think I was finally done with this jinxed project, right? But noooooo.


In this scan of the inside of the mitten you can see that because of the long floats of this particular pattern the yarns are already starting to snag. So I had to tack down the floats on the inside of each mitten.



This particular project represented 2003 for me - many problems and much confusion but the only answer is to keep trying. You can still end up with something good.