Won first prize in an Adjudicated Show put on by the KW Knitters’ Guild, June 2010 in the From a Pattern Category! So chuffed!

The Adjudicator was Anne Hanson, of KnitSpot, and she was delightful and inspiring, and liked these very much (and they fit her).

These are knit at 9st/in.

20081118

I was knitting this at the pool last night and that makes a different project for every week S__’s been taking lessons. Heh. The Frog Hat, the Harry Potter Scarf, this mitten, and the Herringbone Scarf.

It’s moving. Slowly. But moving. I’m almost at the decreases, which have me a little nervous.

20081120

I thought the decreases were going to be difficult, but they are surprisingly clear as long as you keep your edges in mind.

Almost finished the one! Then I’ll have to do the second one. Looks like these will fit Mom, not me, but we’ll see after blocking.

20081124

Beautiful! But my gauge changed mightily. I’m going to have to start over.

20081231

Frogged. Will start over with the right size needle (ugh, size 1, size 1, different things!) and see what size I end up with. I think I’ll add a couple of extra stitches to the edges anyway to give the pattern a little bit of space.

20090101

Started over, added 8 stitches and evened out the snowflakes on the wrist, fits far better.

20090102

Forgot a row entirely, frogged to the 3 rows plain and started over on the snowflakes. Far quicker this time, started with the magic loop, 2.5mm, and I’m really zipping along happily with better tension, too.

20090114

What was that about zipping? sigh Well when I’m able to knit on this, it’s zipping. I’m quite happy with it still, it fits me wonderfully, and it looks really lovely. Those six extra stitches and the right sized needle are making a huge difference. I hope blocking will as well, too.

I hope to finish the one and start the next this week.

20090125

Hope, is hope. But I have the one finished except the thumb and the second is just above the thumb section and moving far quicker than the first one. My tension is about the same, but the fabric is smoother. I’m a happy camper! Somehow I’ve managed to bugger up the extra stitches, again, but whatever, there are enough and I’ll get better with the next pair.

I have been working on these now for a few days in a row and they yarn feels thick and the needles large instead of fine and tiny.

I’m not a very fast knitter yet, but I’m getting there. Faster than I was, which is an improvement!

At choir (folk) another parent pulled out her knitting and laughed because she was knitting with super bulky on 17s it looked like, lol, quite the difference!

20090128

Argh. I had a knot in the Headwater wool, and so I carefully wove in the ends, only to find I’d done the row incorrectly, having focused on the weaving instead of the chart. Okay, so I undid it, did it again, screwed up again, but I didn’t notice until a few rows later.

Ripped out the rows, put them back on the needle.

Screwed up the chart. Tinked back a row, the row with the ends. Spit spliced the ends, started again.

Finally got past the join, realized it was too thick, but was going to leave it, as it’s on the palm, at a crease in my hand, so I wouldn’t notice it, not very apparent visually.

Realized somewhere when I put the stitches back on the needle, I missed a stitch.

Noticed SEVEN rows later.

Tinked back five of the rows, well past the !!@#!@ ends.

So now I have to finish tinking the last two rows, and since I have to deal with the join, AGAIN, I am going to ensure it’s not so thick, and hope that this will get me moving on finishing this glove. It is, despite all this hairiness, going faster! And the tension is good in the mitten, even if my own isn’t so good.

I need to think about blocking these. I have some wire hangers, I think I will mutate a couple and see what I get. I also have a wire hanger bender…

I still love these mittens.

Plus, the numbers in the pattern don’t make sense to me (60+12 is 72, not 74) so I got all sideways on count, but I don’t understand how the pattern does things so differently.

Ah well.

20090130

Fixed the problem, and the dropped stitch, at the book club last night and got a little more resolved. I’m really enjoying these and think they will be beautiful when finished and blocked. Yay!

I am not against doing this type of work again, I have learned a lot about stranding, about charting, and about what I enjoy knitting while doing this project. I really enjoy stranded work. Perhaps not a whole garment, but I’d really love to make a scarf to do with these with stranded ends, perhaps, or a matching hat.

20090104

Undid about 8 rows because I started decreasing on the front AND the palm, when it should have been the palm only. So it was decreasing too fast and would have been too short and the pattern was getting eaten.

I kept going knowing it was wrong because my tension was beautiful! It was working out so nicely! It was tragic to frog those stitches, I tell you, tragic, because they were the best I’ve ever done.

sigh

Oh well, moving on. Got the stitches back on the needles.

20090206

Met up with some local knitters (AnnieBee and lligett) at a Matter of Taste for a lovely little knit and chat and to get away from the office and got the rest of the stitches reoriented and got moving on getting back to speed. Tension normal, not the sweet perfection that I removed. sigh

Hopefully I’ll finish this one this weekend and get some thumbs in them before Winter is over! :D

20080207

Finished the second mitten! Just the two thumbs to go now. I also took a wire hanger and bent it into a nice shape for blocking, which should be nice. They are nice mittens. Yay! Now I have to do the thumbs, though, and I’m scared. It won’t take too long, but it will, from experience here, be a little tricky.

Onward!

20090511

Took photos of them to replace the frogged mitten. I inverted one mitten so the “locked” yarn can be seen, and took closer shots of the details.

I did an ssk for the decrease on one side to match the k2tog (I like matching!) and the sides are still a little bumpy, but these are not blocked yet!

20091108

One is finished, did the thumb today and started the second thumb. Talk about a hiatus… :) I realized the reason I was off about it is the thumb pattern is half a stitch off.

I think that, in the future, what I’ll do is knit the thumb first and then keep knitting so there is no shift or weirdness.

20100210

In an effort to actually finish the last tiny thumb, I’ve put this in the Ravelympics!

20100228

And, all done! Photos tomorrow! Perhaps in action… :D

20100301

The thumb that was done is horrible. It’s just wrong all over. So many mistakes and I am going to leave them. The second thumb, done yesterday, is perfection. The inside pattern is right, the decreases are neater, everything came together. What a difference a year makes in skill, knowledge and confidence!

All in all, these really didn’t take very long. It was the very long time-out that took all the time!

later

Also, though it’s only at the top of the one thumb on the front and back of it, I finished the decreases with a very nice s1k2togpsso which just looks so nice I’m thinking about undoing the other thumb and the top of both mittens to fix them.

I’m not thinking very hard about it, but the thought did cross my mind. For next time, definitely finish with a flourish instead of not knowing what to do and just running all the stitches through and hoping for the best.