Flipping Mittens

I almost finished knitting the pair of Dire Wolf Mittens as a birthday gift. I actually DID finish the 2nd mitten, then discovered that I made a beautiful mistake in it. You'll see how I made the mistake when I detail my modifications.

I wanted to make these Dire Wolf Mittens as "flip top" mittens (where someone can stick out their fingers w/o needing to take them off), because the recipient uses his hands quite a bit and needs the dexterity of the fingers.

1. Around line 40, I placed the 30 palm stitches onto waste yarn
2. Knit the last 30 stitches
3. Cast on another 30 stitches using a provisional cast on with a crochet hook
4. Completed the mittens per pattern.



5. Put the bottom stitches on the smaller needles (US3/ 3.25mm) and knit ribbing upwards (and sewed the edges to the mitten
6. Put the top stitches on the bigger needles (US 6 / 4.0) and knit the pattern DOWNWARD (lines 39, 38, 37, 36, 35), then.
7. Swapped to 3.0mm beacuse I wanted something a LITTLE tighter so the gap wouldn't gape....and knit 1x1 ribbing for a few rows and attached them to the edges of the mittens.

 

When I was finished, I had 3 sets of needles lying on my desk. I immediately cast on for the 2nd pair of mittens. I grabbed the US 3s to start the ribbing. When I was finished with the ribbing, I grabbed the other set of needles and started knitting the main body

Guess which ones I grabbed? Ayup...the other set of US 3s.... I noticed that I was a tad bit tighter in my knitting, but I attributed that to the tension of the yarn and made a conscious effort to be loose...never considering my needles.

Oy. When everything was done and I finished weaving in all the ends, the actual stitches/inch gauge wasn't that far off...but the row count was...by almost 0.5 inches. Such a wonderfully beautiful mistake. *sigh*

I looked at the needles lying on my desk, and saw that the US 6s were on very short cables, which wasn't the ones I was using when I was knitting the body. I feel wonderfully "pretty".

A friend suggested that I knit another 2 mittens to match both sizes. I'm not sure I'm up for that, but I do have to knit a CORRECT mate to the first mitten that I knit. Luckily, the recipient's bday isn't for another month so I have time.

Oy...

Undivided Attention

Listening to podcasts while trying to knit fair isle can be hazardous. I can either pay attention to the podcast (and mess up my fair isle) or pay attention to my fair isle and miss what's being said.

Listening to music is a much better choice in the matter.

But, at least one of the mittens is done.

Fair Isle Mittens

As a "quick" little knitted project, I'm working a set of Dire Wolf mittens for someone's birthday.  Normally, I wouldn't knit mittens, because, well.....I'm in CALIFORNIA....where mittens aren't as useful as fingerless gloves (unless I'm going up to snow country).

But this pair is for someone who frequently finds himself out in the cold and needs a bit of warmth, esp. at night when sleeping outside.

I'm really enjoying the fair isle work. It's a small quick project that involves a bit of concentration, but not so much as to not be enjoyable. I can see why there are a lot of knitting patterns for fair isle mittens.