Saturday 13 April 2013

Mitten, mitten, who's got the mitten?

That would be me! I finished my Flamingo Mittens over the Easter weekend, which was both pleasing and useful - it snowed the day I went back to work. This spring has pretty much sucked weather-wise.

Completed mittens

I love flamingos. They may well be my second-favourite bird, closely following the magpie. I decided to knit this pattern the minute I saw it! SpillyJane writes an excellent pattern. It's easy-to-read and laid out well. I don't often buy individual patterns, but this was totally worth it.

I made three modifications to the pattern. First, I knit the cuffs longer. I like loooooong cuffs on my mittens so they tuck into my sleeves nicely. No draughts, thank you very much! I also changed the needles. I did the cuffs on 2.25mm needles, again for reasons of draught prevention, and then did the stranded parts on 2.75mm needles.





Thumb View


The final modification, which you can just about see here, is that I decided to knit the tips of the thumbs in solid black rather than continuing the stripe pattern. I thought it would look better if the tips of the thumbs matched the tips of the fingers.

In retrospect I should have knit both the thumbs and the fingertips longer. I always forget how freakishly long my fingers are compared to most women, even though my hands are quite slender. Still, they're long enough to be comfortable. Otherwise I wouldn't have been wearing them constantly for the last fortnight! Speaking of slender hands, were mine any bigger I'd've needed to go up a needle size or two. These are quite tight.



And just because I always like seeing the insides of stranded projects, here are some inverse flamingos.



I'm pleased with how the colourwork turned out. This was the first stranded project I've done since learning about colour dominance, and I'm very happy with the results.

Saturday 6 April 2013

Dangerous furniture

A few months ago I dropped my needle gauge behind the chest that all of my knitting and notions live on. It's not a tool I use often, so rather than go to the hassle of moving things I decided to leave it. Today I needed to size some DPNs, so I hauled everything out of the way and moved the chest. The wretched chest has been eating my stuff!

In addition to the needle gauge I found:

  • A pack of assorted darning needles
  • Spinning wheel oil
  • Fine grit sandpaper
  • My SCONUL card
  • A recipe for oatmeal cookies
  • The sample photograph for my Blessed Thistle Tsocks
  • My father's business card
  • My expired British Library reader's pass
  • The measurements of my sister-in-law's feet that I've been looking for for months

Possibly I should move the chest more often. It seems to be exhibiting draconic hoarding tendencies...