fo: my andrea’s mitts

Progress on my new sweater is continuing – at a very satisfying pace, thanks to my break from school this week. (I feel like I am too old to call it “spring break,” but that’s totally what it is. Bring on the Arrested Development jokes)

I wanted to blog these mitts, though. I’ve been wearing them a lot this week, and I wanted to make sure I got some pictures up before they got too worn and fuzzy-looking.

These are the Andrea’s Mitts () I started in February. They languished on my craft table for an embarrassing while with only one thumb left to do, but once the weather started warming up, I wanted them finished so I could wear them. And man, am I wearing these a lot.

The main colour is 100% alpaca, and the contrasting stripes are alpaca-silk, which means that they are totally fuzzy and soft and warm, but also have a bit of a tendency to stretch out. That actually works perfectly with this pattern, which I wish I could say I planned on. The lace around the cuff turns out tight – much more than I expected, even though the pattern says that the cuff is pretty tight – which keeps them snug on my upper arms much better than ribbing ever would.

Plus, I feel like a pretty pretty princess when I wear them around.

sometimes i just want to know what it’s like to be you

I feel as though I haven’t knit in months. Probably it’s only been a week, but I’m tired, and Sleepy Me is a lot less rational about this sort of thing.

I’ve finished the commission work I started at the beginning of the month, and it’s off in the mail today.

I also started these, for myself. They are ridiculous, and insanely fiddly for what is, essentially, a pair of fingerless mittens, but I’m in love. The pattern is Andrea’s Mitts (), and you’re going to have to trust me that mine look like the ones in the pattern – it’s surprisingly hard to photograph stitch patterns in dark purple yarn, on yourself, left-handed.

Back in July, when I did the TTC Knitalong, I was given a single skein of – I think it’s Plymouth Mainland. This wool is gorgeous alpaca/silk, but each skein is only 65m, so I ended up using it as the CC in these mittens, along with some leftover purple yarn from a vest I knit last year. It was an excellent decision.

Song of the Entry: Fall Out Boy – Of All The Gin Joints In All The World

fo: thrummed mittens

It is so, so satisfying to have these mittens done. They were a positive project experience from start to finish, which was such a delight. I’m so glad to have made them, too – playing with roving to make the thrums was a really satisfying, educational experience (that does not make me want to learn to spin, I swear), and I managed to split the colour changes just right to have two mittens that matched, exactly the way I was hoping they would.

They’re also going to be almost inhumanly warm, which you perhaps can’t tell from the photo above, but you can definitely tell in this picture.

Pattern: the Fleece Artist “thrum mitten” pattern from my LYS, sort of.
Yarn: Fleece Artist Merino Sliver roving, 50g, and one skein of Cascade 220 in black
Needles: 4mm dpns

Modifications: I did a lot of googling before I started this project, and came to a few decisions about things I wanted in my mittens that weren’t in the pattern I had. I wanted a bit of a ribbed cuff – so I knit that, instead of the cuff in the pattern. And then I wanted to have staggered rows of thrums, so I went ahead and did that, too. By the time I got to the top of the mitten and the thumb, I’d sort of given up on reading the pattern, so I went ahead and made them up – but I feel like they’re pretty close to what was written, so whatever.

I also added an idiot string – partly on the advice of Julie, who pointed out that these mittens are not going to fit in my pockets, which, if you’re me, means that there’s a good chance I’ll lose one. I also added it in part because I’ve always wanted to make myself mittens on a string. Just because.

I knit the string by picking up 3 stitches from the cuff, on the side opposite the thumb. I then worked roughly 342098 meters of i-cord, and when I felt that it was about as long as my armspan (plus a bit extra) I picked up three stitches from the cuff of the other mitten, in the same place, and grafted it to the i-cord.

It was wonderful. I wish that I could make these mittens not-black for just a minute, so that I could do a better job of showing you how well it worked out.