the prettiest mittens ever

No really, they are. I think they are prettiest thing I've ever knit. JoAnn says they are the prettiest mittens she's ever seen. So I'll take her word for it.

I do love them, they have cables and lace and teeny tiny stitches. But... right now, as I'm typing this it's -27C outside and these mittens have lots of holes all over. Pretty in lace, not really smart in the winter.

I've blogged about these mittens before so I won't go over those details (like what the pattern is and yarn, etc...). I did want to say how much I enjoyed knitting the first mitten. How challenging it was to keep track of lace repeats and the cable twist and the increases for the thumb gusset. I wanted to wax on about this all came together perfectly while knitting the first mitten. A real pleasure.

Then, I started the second mitten. I don't really know what happened but all my good knitting mojo flew the coop and I had problem after problem. It took me a month to finish these. A month!

I was listening to a Knitmore Girls Podcast  one evening in bed and knitting this cursed 2nd mitten when realized I was having one. A big one. A giant, big, "when knitting attacks" and I laughed out loud causing B to look at me funny (he was in bed too reading Stephen King, how he falls asleep after reading that stuff I'll never know). I started to write down all the mistakes I made on the back of the pattern.

Yup. It happens to everyone. Still, I'd knit them again, they are really pretty mittens.

Very Cabley Mittens

Well here is my 2nd FO for 2011. I knit up these little mittens this past weekend after I got a email reminder that I had committed to knitting something for a raffle basket. The items are due for the end of the month and I had completely forgotten, so in a mad panic I raced to my binder of patterns (where almost all the patterns I queue end up) and pulled out this beauty.

I found this pattern by Kelly Porpiglia and it's free on Ravelry! Love those free patterns! About 478 people have projects listed on Ravelry and on Sunday, I added mine.

Very Cabley Mittens are knit on 4.5mm dpns (or magic loop) with worsted weight yarn. The cable pattern is super simple and the pattern itself is well written and clear. I was able to use some acrylic I had and that makes me very happy. Usually I wouldn't use acrylic (I'm a bit of a snob) but when it comes to donation knitting, machine wash and dry is the way to go.

I'd actually use this yarn again to knit mittens. They turned out super cute. I love how roomy they are! I'd knit a nice alpaca liner for added warmth and softness, and voila! The perfect winter mitten!

Look at my Thumbs!

Here's a look at my first pair of Fried Chicken Mittens! Gosh I love that name! I made them with some Cascade Eco in grey (that haunts my stash in large amounts) and did some embroidery in scrap purple stuff. I actually found two cute buttons that match the Superstar's new favorite colour.

This was a super easy pattern to knit. I did some mods though because I usually do...

* I knit 17 rows in 2x2 rib and then on the next round I knit and increased 4 throughout the round (once per needle). My original intention was to knit a liner and I still may.

* Oh, and I knit these on dpns because I haven't tried the magic loop technique yet.

* I followed the pattern after that but adjusted for the 4 extra stitches.

* I picked up the 2 stitches for the thumb as per the pattern but on the next round I knit them together with the next stitch, so ~k all sts until last 3, k2tog, k2tog (last stitch plus first stitch).~ I had to adjust the thumb pattern a bit so the decreases were at the end of the round, where those picked up and knit back together stitches were. This made for a bit slimmer of a thumb and no holes to sew up later.

The next time I knit them (which is right away!) I'll skip the knit rounds prior to closing the top of the mitten and the thumb. I think it makes a bit of pointy tip which looks odd to me. I'll also knit a much longer cuff and I'll probably not do those extra increases.

I enjoyed the thumb! Really! I panicked a bit when I had to put those stitches on my scrap yarn. The thumb opening was awfully big, but the pattern says relax, the thumb is supposed to look big. Thank goodness for that! The tapering that happens when knitting the thumb after really does the trick! The thumb fits!

Truly a great fun pattern!

Ta da! A new pair of mittens for the Superstar!