FO Friday: Tauremorna Mitts

When I first started knitting, I thought fingerless gloves were one of the dumbest things ever.


I didn't understand why anyone would want a pair of gloves that doesn't cover their fingers. I live in Wisconsin, I understand cold temperatures and dressing for the weather, fingers are the part of the hand that get cold first. It didn't make sense to me.






Then I gave in and made a pair, just to see what the fuss was all about.







And I got it.




First, fingerless gloves are warmer than I thought. Not Wisconsin winter warm, warmer than I would have guessed. My understanding is that it has something to do with keeping your pulse points warm, but I'm not expert on that. They are perfect for the spring and fall months when it isn't warm enough for gloves or mittens, but still chilly on your bare hands.




The utility of having your fingers free should not be underestimated. Among other things, it is virtually impossible to securely fasten a carseat while wearing mittens.  For the super cold winter weather, I also have a pair of flippy top mittens for the same purpose.


I discovered another great use for fingerless gloves at work. They are fantastic to have for when the office is chilly. They keep your fingers warm while still allowing you to do everything you need to do to get work done. I keep my Zombie Doomsday mitts at my desk for that exact reason. They work so fantastically well, that my friend decided that she needed a pair, too.


If you know me at all, you know that I only knit for a select group of people. As one of my friends, and fellow knitters, likes to say


"Knitting for others is like sex, if I like you enough, it will be free. If I don't, you can't pay me enough to do it."


While the list of people isn't the same, I think that sums up the sentiment quite well.


Anyways, the friend that requested the mitts passed my requirements, and I agreed to make her a pair of fingerless gloves. The end result being these:

The pattern is called Tauremorna Mitts and they are knit in Malabrigo Yarn Mechita. Mechita is a Merino wool, so it is soft and squishy, and this color, English Rose, is tonal shades of pink. The design itself has a cable design on the top. All the cables are just a single stitch wide and done without a needle. They were an enjoyable knit, didn't take too long to complete, and probably only used about 1/2 of the 420 yard skein.

They were received with the proper accolades and a couple of days later, my friend sent me this:

So at least I know they are being used and appreciated.

Project Talk: Some Assembly Required

As a process knitter, I’m not a huge fan of finishing work. Why waste the time doing silly things like blocking, weaving in ends, and sewing seams when you could be actually knitting. I would think finding the motivation to finish would be easier for project orientated knitters, as it is a vital step in having a completed project (but seeing as I’m not a project orientated knitter, I cannot be sure. Anybody want to verify?).



Spatterdash Mitts, Done!

Thankfully, most of the projects I choose to work on don’t require too much in the way of finishing work. There are exceptions, the Carry-All Tote and Hey Teach! cardigan being the freshest ones in my mind. Thankfully, the Spatterdash fingerless gloves from Knitty.com didn’t require all that much finishing work. Just the usual blocking, weaving a couple of ends, two seams, and some buttons.  Okay, not some buttons, many buttons, a lot of buttons, 14 buttons per glove.

Definently worth the finishing.

But the end result is worth it. They turned out beautifully! The yarn is Imagination Hand-painted Sock yarn from KnitPicks.com in the colorway Wicked Witch, and it is amazing! I’m not a huge fan of it for socks, I have trouble with shrinkage and felting (I line dry, but machine wash, which might be part most of the problem), but the colors are amazing and the yarn comes out so soft after blocking! I think I’ll stick to using it for non-sock accessories. Stroll, also from Knit Picks, is my absolute favorite for socks, just in case anyone was wondering.

Sheepcote sleeves and start of the main body.

In other project news, I’ve completed the second sleeve and cast of for the body of the Sheepcote pullover, from the Twist Collective and am on the leg of the second of my Surfin’ Peacock socks, so I’m making progress, little by little. Once finished with the Peacock socks, I’ll be (hopefully) testing my Packer Sock pattern and after Sheepcote, I am absolutely, no excuses, finally getting to the February Lady sweater.

And a side note about the sleeves of the Sheepcote, the are 3/4 length sleeves on a yolked sweater. So I know that they look short and chunky, but I've tried them on and they are going to work out great for the sweater.

Adventures in Pattern Writing: Episode 3, Perfectionism Rears Its Ugly Head (Again)

I'm what you might call a selective perfectionist. Some things I can just slap together and not care, but when it comes to knitting, I'll redo, redo, redo until I'm happy with the results.

While this tendency can product some particularly excellent results, but it also has been the cause of massive amounts of frustration, and copious amounts of inappropriate, foul, colorful language.

After finally conquering inserting my charts from Microsoft Excel into Word, I started working on importing all of the heel charts (numbers 0 to 9) into the pattern. Then I looked at my Matthews jersey, hanging on the drying rack, I looked at the 52, I looked at the charts for the 5 and 2, I looked back at the 52, back at the charts. They didn't look the same.

Sure, the 5 and 2 I charted looked like a 5 and a 2, but not like the ones on the jersey. The numbers on the jersey were, blockier, had more straight edges. At that point, I already knew what was coming, but I fought it for awhile. Maybe it was the jersey's problem, not mine. I decided to compare the numbers on my Rodgers jersey (yes, mom, MY Rodgers jersey). Again, my charted 1 and 2 looked like a 1 and a 2, but not like the ones on the jersey. Crap.

The Original Five

I wasn't ready to face reality just quite yet, though. Clearly, I must own two faulty jerseys, so I dug out Husband's jersey, and the dog's jersey. Nope, the numbers were consistent from jersey to jersey and not the same as the ones on my socks.

Once again, I fought the inevitable. It wasn't really going to matter, I told myself. No one is going to look at the numbers on the heels of these socks and point out that they are not shaped exactly like the numbers on the players' jerseys. What kind of person notices that sort of thing? Most likely no one would ever know, and if they know, it is even more likely that no one would ever care.

Edited Five

Except for me. I would know. And I cared. And I knew what I had to do.

I printed out ten blank heel charts. Then I went to the Packer's website to find pictures of jerseys, and I recharted all of the numbers. And the process started all over again, hand drawing, charting in Excel, cutting and pasting (using Paste Special, at least I remember that) into Word.

And, I'm glad I did it. Otherwise it would have bothered me, and I would have ended up doing it at some point anyway. We all know I'm crazy like that.

In other news, the knitting on the Spatterdash fingerless gloves is done and I was lucky enough to find buttons for them. I just need to block, weave in ends, and assemble. Yay!

Project Talk: In a Slump

Lately I’ve been feeling rather blah about my knitting. Well, actually to be fair, I’ve been feeling rather blah about a lot of things, which just so happens to include my knitting. Not sure if it’s holiday stress, weather, the fact that I’ve been sick, or something else, but things are just very blah.
Usually for the holiday season, I plan on knitting an impossible combination of gifts and decorations. This year? Zero, zilch, nada. I thought about knitting something for my mom, but never got beyond the idea in my head. (Sorry, mom, maybe for mother’s day, or your birthday, or next year)
There’s nothing wrong with the projects that are on my needles. In fact, I’m pretty happy with the projects. I’m hoping that over the next few days, an increase in family time equals an increase in knitting time, the trip to Lambeau field not only provides several more hours of knitting time, but also serves to inspire me to translate a couple of football related ideas from my head to actual knit goods (or just to paper, before the ideas leave my brain for that matter) and writing about the projects serves to inspire me to pick up the needles and knit more.

So here’s what is on my  needles right now:
  
Socks, of course. Currently, I’m working on Cookie A’s design, Cubist socks. As the name implies, it has a geometric pattern that resembles cubes. I’m knitting them out of Malabrigo sock yarn in the colorway Abril, which is some beautiful shades of purple. The pattern looked a little intimidating at first, but really isn’t too bad. I’ve gotten past the gusset decreases for the first sock.

Spatterdash Fingerless Gloves. I’ll admit it, I’ve become a convert to fingerless gloves. At first, I thought they were useless, but after making a pair, I’m hooked. I had a beautiful pair of End Paper Mitts, but they are now happily on the hands of a friend, so I needed another pair. This pattern, Spatterdash found on knitty.com, combines buttons and ruffles, so I can’t go wrong. I’m using Knit Picks Imagination sock yarn in the colorway Wicked Witch for those. The green in the yarn looks like it will match my winter coat beautifully, so I’m happy so far. I am a little concerned that the gloves might be too small, and I might need to start over with a bigger needle, but I really need to get more done before making that decision (Yes, I know, this is usually a recipe for me griping in a couple of weeks wondering why I didn’t just rip out and start over when I first suspected they might be too small, but this pattern for gloves is different than any I’ve done before, so I’m honestly not sure).

Sheepcote Pullover. This one started out as a love story. I saw it in the Twist Collective and had to buy the pattern, immediately went out to find suitable yarn and couldn’t wait to get started. It immediately jumped ahead of the February Lady Sweater, which has been next up forever (but things seem to keep budging ahead in line…I really need to do something about that). So I casted on, over a month ago, and have completed one sleeve. I still like it, and I’m not sure what the actual problem is. Maybe it is that sleeves just aren’t that fun and things will get better once I get to the actual body of the sweater, either way, progress has been slow.

Of course, there are some perpetual works in progress out there on the needles. The Scrap Sock Yarn blanket, which may very well never be finished, and the Yggdrasil Afghan; which, without a deadline, just gets neglected. I might buckle down and make it my Wednesday night project to work on while husband is away at Lions and basketball.

So that’s what is on my needles, hopefully I will be able to report some actual progress sometime soon!

626? A Bit of a Lofty Goal

It's not really a secret, I'm a big fan of Ravelry, a website geared toward knitters and crocheters. It is a giant database of patterns, has a ton of information on yarns, provides a place to show off finished products, allows you to keep track of your yarn stash, and has very active forums, with groups geared toward not only tips and tricks for fiber artists, but also just about any topic imaginable. I'm continually amazed at just how much time I can spend browsing around on Ravelry. 

It seems that the pattern database and queue feature is where I tend to get in a little bit over my head.There are multiple ways you can search or browse patterns on Ravelry. You can search by pattern type, availability (free, online, in my collection of knitting books, in other print sources, etc.), by yarn types or weight, project type, intended age, the list goes on and on. When you find a pattern that you like, there is an option to add it to your queue, your personal list of patterns that you are planning on. or would like to knit. I've spent many hours looking through patterns and adding them to my queue. Currently, my list spans over 20 pages and contains 626 items.

In considering the size of my list, combined with the fact that the rate of adding new patterns to the list is exceeding by far the rate of finishing projects and starting new ones, this is going to be a never ending list. Clearly, I need to either knit faster, or add less patterns to the list.

Project Update: 

I've finished the first one of the Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang. They are a pretty simple project, but have given me the opportunity to learn some new techniques. I've learned a new method of both casting on and binding off ribbing, the tubular cast-on and tubular bind-off (or Kitchener rib bind-off). And, I always enjoy the chance to do some color work. The picture quality is not good, it was taken in poor lighting, but the combination of the brown and orange looks really good in real life. (and I probably owe a special thank you to Lily, who allowed me to set the mitt on her back while photographing it)