Monday, November 3, 2008

Mitt-licious



pattern: Midnightsky Fibers' fingerless mitts (with a few of my own modifications), here
yarn: Brown Sheep Handpaint Originals
colors: HP 90, Stormy Skies
amount: used one skein plus about a yard from a second one, about 90 yds.
finished measurements: small
needles: dpn's, US 1 (2.25 mm)




Although I had a heck of a time getting these made, I finally got them done. My first completed project on dpn's, too!

Some construction details:

I used the pattern as written with a few small changes. The first mitt I made (now frogged), I followed the pattern, but was unhappy with how the yarn worked with the pattern stitch. Before I frogged the first mitt I made the second but instead of using the pattern stitch, I simply used stockinette stitch. I think it worked better with the yarn and the color play shows up a bit better. The only other change I made was that after I completed the thumb decrease and got rid of the final one stitch of the decrease, I only knit 3 more rows, instead of 4 (the final knit row after the 3 pattern rows in the instructions).



I like the thumb in this pattern more than in some fingerless mitts I've seen. It isn't knit out separately but rather a hole is made by casting on 9 extra stitches, and then those 9 stitches are decreased over a number of rows. If you look closely, you can see where the decreases are below the thumb holes in the photo below.


This yarn is a bit scratchy so I suspect the mitts won't get used while sitting in a chilly office typing as much as they will for quick trips to the store but we'll see. I love the colors but didn't like working with such small needles.

I'm going to play with modifying this pattern even more, knitting from the wrist to the fingers instead of the other way around in as in the instructions; using a heavier yarn and bigger needles; and doing, perhaps obviously, increases and a bind off on the thumb holes instead of cast on and decreases. My first venture into pattern design. Stay tuned!

In other knitting news, I've had a bad case of startitis all fall and have about 12 projects going now, most of which I can't post about now because they're gifts for friends and family, but I have a few for myself I'll be adding, and gifts will be added after the holidays!







1 comment:

Bea said...

Cute! I hope you get over the startitis soon so that you can get some finishitis!