They're Not Oven Mitts

They took forever to dry and then had to wait a couple of days for a natural light photo shoot, but here they are!

Pattern: Bird in Hand by Kate Gilbert
Yarn: Cascade 220, color 4002 (MC), one skein, and Cascade 220 Heathers, color 9461 (CC), approximately half a skein
Needles: two 16" US 2 (2.75 mm) Addi Turbo circs and US 2 dpns for thumb
Started/Completed: December 14, 2007/January 29, 2008
Mods: none

I bought this pattern on a whim after a rough couple of days at work when I decided I deserved a little treat. I was so excited to knit it that I cast on right away (on a Friday evening) and finished the first mitten before the weekend was over. Then it took about a month before I cast on the second mitten; I have no good excuse for why that is.

There are a number of issues with these mittens, none of which has to do with the pattern (which is expertly written and well worth the price!). To begin with, they're a little too big. I've got probably an inch of extra space at the top of the hand and maybe a half inch of space at the top of the thumb. That doesn't bother me so much; I've had yet to find a pair of store-bought mittens or gloves that aren't long on me. They are rather loose around the wrists, which is unfortunate, because I love the patterned band and the picot edging (the braid is pretty too, but it was a major PITA to do). This is an instance when ribbing would have been really helpful. The mittens stay on fine if I put them on before putting on my coat, but, as we discovered when I did just that before taking these pictures, that also prevents me from being able to zip myself up.

The other issue is that my stranded work was not so great with these. It's passable on the underside of the mitten (as you see on the right in the photo above), but the tops are definitely lumpy and the thumbs pucker. I did try to keep my tension as even as I could and the floats as loose as possible, but I think it was a combination of the needles and yarn that did me in. I really felt like I was struggling with the circs on these, so perhaps I was pulling tighter than I should have been as a result. Clearly part of the issue as well was working with worsted weight yarn on what are essentially sock needles.

All those problems aside, I'm in love with these mittens and want to show them off to everyone I see. I may very well knit this pattern again, although next time I'll probably use dpns for the whole thing and knit a smaller size and/or use a lighter yarn. I'll also omit the braid next time. It's a nice touch, but it was murder on my hands.

By the way, do the colors look familiar to you? If they do, it's probably because these were knit entirely with stash yarn -- the brown was the last skein from the yarn for the Seamless Hybrid and the green is the same yarn I used for my CPH. It's nice to have handknits that coordinate, isn't it?

We're off for a quick trip to Cleveland in about half an hour. I'm taking my Chevron Scarf for my car knitting, as it hasn't seen much attention lately. Have a great weekend!

Enough Knitting to Cause a Callous

Man oh man, did I have a weekend of knitting. We left for Hidden Valley late Saturday morning. I cast on for my second Jawoll sock in the car and got a good inch of cuff done by the time we got to our friend's house. Then The Mister and the rest of the group went to hit the slopes, and I settled in with a new episode of Cast On, some figure skating, and the yarn for my aunt's sweater. Six hours of knitting later, I found myself with a lovely callous on my right middle finger and about six inches of body:

I had my uncle do some measurements for this sweater on the sly; I gave him very specific instructions to measure a sweater that fits my aunt well when she wasn't home. Based upon the numbers he sent me, it looks like we wear pretty much the same size, so I'll be able to try this sweater on and know if it's knitting up to be the right size.

I'm knitting at a gauge of 5 stitches to the inch and aiming for a 36" chest. I decided to do ribbing instead of hems this time around and to make the body a bit longer. I cast on 192 stitches to start out with (I wanted the bottom to measure 38 inches, but I had to add on two additional stitches to make the 2x2 rib work). After two inches of ribbing, I worked paired decreased at each side for some waist shaping and to get down to 180 stitches. Now I'm at the part where I just knit knit knit until the body is long enough. Boring, yes, but also good movie/TV knitting.

We left pretty early yesterday morning to come home, ran our errands, and relaxed the rest of the day. I decided it was high time I finish my Bird in Hand mittens, so that became my project for yesterday. I'm now decreasing for the hand of the left mitten and should work on the thumb tonight.

On this mitten, I kept my floats a lot shorter than on the first -- no more than four stitches. Part of my reasoning is that I wanted less to catch my ring on when I wear the mittens, but it will be interesting to see if there's any difference in the colorwork in the two mittens as a result.

I really like these mittens and the pattern, but I am so ready to be done knitting worsted weight yarn on size 2 needles. No wonder I have callouses!

Calling All Fiber Fantatics

This is your regular bi-monthly reminder that tomorrow night is the third-Wednesday-of-the-month meeting of the Hurricane Knitters at the Waterworks Barnes & Noble, starting about 7 p.m.

I'm going to be bringing my Bird in Hand mittens. For some reason, even though it only took me two or three days to finish the first mitten, this


is as far as I've gotten on the second. I'd like to be able to wear these while it's still winter, so I think a break from the BSJ action is warranted.

Hope to see you tomorrow!

One Warm Hand

I "cheated" on Trellis all weekend and worked on nothing but my swap socks (downstairs) and my first Bird in Hand mitten (upstairs). By the time I was ready to go to bed last night, the right mitten was done (my apologies for the light quality in the photos that follow -- it was about 10 p.m., so any natural light we'd had yesterday was long gone.)

Front view ...

... and back

I'm going to hold off on the second mitten for the time being so that I can focus once again on Trellis. There really isn't all that much knitting left to do, and after indulging in a little knitting for myself I feel ready to get back to it.

I'm still not sure what project I'll be bringing to this month's meeting of the Hurricane Knitters, but I will be there with yarn to swap (see the Ravelry message board for more on this) starting at about 7 p.m. this Wednesday.

A Bird in the Hand ...

Yesterday, in the middle of the last day of a very busy, very stressful week, I decided I needed a little pick-me-up, so I treated myself to a pattern that I wanted to knit as soon as I saw it: Kate Gilbert's Bird in Hand mittens. I couldn't wait to cast on as soon as I got home:

I'm using a skein leftover from The Mister's Seamless Hybrid and a skein left from my Central Park Hoodie. I really like the color combination. It's a little odd knitting with worsted weight yarn on sock needles (US 2/3 mm), but I think they will be nice and toasty when they're done.

I'm still working on Trellis -- back is done, as is the left front; right front has been cast on ...

and the swap socks are moving along nicely. We're in the middle of a nor'easter this weekend, so we're all holed up and I'm planning to knit the rest of the weekend!