Floofy goodness
Ok, here's the color thing I was telling you about the other day. The pink fabric and the orange fabric both use the same background yarn (a single ply from Seven Sisters Arts), the only difference is the floof color (both fuzzy laceweights from Haute Knit Yarn). For some reason, this delights me to no end. I'm going to need someone to provide me with a very convincing reason not to find a purple floof yarn and continue the shenanigans...
Weather dependent
So these are done. And the general plan is both to have them come back out, and to make a hat to match. And probably to make a little digression on how that stitch works and how to play with it because that sort of thing amuses me. All of which will be available in various forms as they come together. The timing of all that is somewhat weather dependent. It's summer, finding the right sort of day to take photos where they'll come out nicely and I won't keel over from the heat sometimes takes a while. And I [...]
Shorthand
This? This is alas another of those things best done by pointing and gesturing and talking. The video that goes with this is up on a public post on patreon and also on instagram, and you should go look at one of those for a second first so this makes sense! Ok, so first I must emphasize, Do Not Fret If This Looks Like Gibberish! But this is sort of how I draw out stitch patterns when it's JUST for me. Just for my own use, not ever to be inflicted on anyone else in any but the most informal [...]
Mind the Gap
I warned you I was going to indulge myself and talk about the nerdy bits of these mitts, so let's just do that. Let's talk about how to handle that little gap you can sometimes get between the hand part of the mitt and the thumb part of the mitt. When you make a mitt, you (generally) set some stitches aside for the thumb, finish off the hand, then come back and make a tube for your thumb using the stitches you set aside. BUT, if you just start making a tube with your set aside thumb stitches and nothing [...]
Discontinuity
Let's talk about thumbs on gradient mitts. First, this is a very long gradient with subtle shifts. The color change over the course of the mitt is slight, so you could get away without doing this! But it's a neat trick, so it's worth talking about. Usually when I knit a mitt, I knit a tube for the wrist, make the tube wider to make room for a thumb, knit the wider tube until I get to the webbing between my thumb and hand, set stitches aside for the thumb, then go back to knitting the original size tube for [...]
So many mitts
So, I try really hard to keep the blog (and instagram...and twitter...and ravelry...and even, in theory, pinterest) up to date, but sometimes that just doesn't happen. It seems to go in phases, and just lately I've been chattier over on instagram (I think it' something about the 8 zillion little heart notifications and the never ending scrolling wall of pretty...that's totally not an accident, it's pretty much designed to reel you in and steal your attention for hours on end). And that means I've been scandalously remiss and haven't show off the mitts in a while. They zipped along in [...]
Look I just have a weakness for sets ok…
Yeah yeah, in what will be a surprise to absolutely no one who knows me at all, there are about to be mitts to match the hat. Because I can, that's why. And because having sets of knitted things is about as close as I come to having anything you'd consider opinions about fashion. The only real question I have is 'is there going to be enough yarn (and enough patience) for a cowl after this?' Because I think there's a tiny chance the answer to both is yes...
Reminders
This is your occasional reminder to put set your thumb stitches aside on waste yarn (rather than a spare needle or a cable needle) if you have the choice. Yes, that sometimes means finding scissors (to snip off a few inches of the yarn) or a darning needle (to run said yarn through the stitches). But especially if it's the first mitt of the pair, doing it this way lets you try it on and make sure you're happy with how long you've made the mitt before you start the thumbs. I know I had a few pairs of mitts [...]
So let’s talk thumbs
I mentioned last time I had to be a bit more mellow than I normally am and embrace a little bit of chaos because of the long color changes on this yarn. The left and right mitts won't match exactly, and that's just ok. But...that doesn't mean I've totally embraced a go with the flow attitude. I still want to keep the thumbs as tidy and uniform as I can. That means doing a very tiny bit of math. So normally when I knit a mitt, I knit the wrist, then increase for the thumb, then knit up to the [...]
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