Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Here's my Kalev's mitten from Folk Knitting in Estonia in progress. I believe Geane previously tried this one but wasn't getting gauge. I had exactly the same issue when I swatched with Nature Spun fingering and then the Spindrift I purchased just for these mittens.
Lisa asked about the yarn and gauge I'm getting as she plans to knit these mittens also. I am making these in a small adult size and I like mittens a bit snug so I decided upon five and a half repeats of the bean blossom pattern. This means that the bean blossom pattern has two blossoms going the same way at the end of the row but this is really really hard to see so I'm fine with it. I always configure mittens so that the row end is at the outside edge of the mitten (towards the pinky) when you're wearing them so you can't see any problems with color jogs.
I am using Nylamb (the mint green color) and Peruvian cashmere yarn. They are both similar in softness and I love the colors together.
If you look at the picture of the mittens in the book, the corrugated ribbing kind of flips up the cast on edge. My adjustment was to cast on with the long tail cast on, then do 1 row of K2P2 ribbing in the purple color then do one row of K2P2 stockinette (to avoid those ugly purl bumps when you stripe ribbing) then start the corrugated ribbing. I like how it looks.
This mitten also includes the dreaded yarnover braid. It is easy to do but tough to get perfectly even since it involves tugging on a yarn after each stitch. It also doesn't come together perfectly at the end of the row which you can see a bit if you look at the left edge.