Sip Sip!

Back in mid-November, my cousin sent me a picture of a cupholder mitten for sale.  I had seen it before, but I`m not much of an outside drinker in the winter, LOL.  Looking at the picture, I thought, Hey...that would probably be quick to make in crochet, or on the machine--if I could figure out how it`s done.  By Dec 13 I had gotten around to searching for a crocheted pattern, and found a free one.  I got started late after my community band's Christmas concert.  Crochet is quick, right?  Well, maybe I should have done a simple single crochet instead of the "fancy" into front/back loop type thing.  It did go pretty quick (once I picked the yarn--I wanted this for the "girl" gift for a gift exchange game and none of my chunky yarns were really girly, plus I wanted it sort of neutral), but still not super quick.  I got the cupholder part done, then thought I might hand knit the cuff in ribbing for a good fit.  But I wasn't in love with it, especially once I realized there's no bottom.

So, I got to work on the knitting machine.  Digging through the stash, I was disappointed....I didn't think any of my washable wools were girly enough while still being neutral/basic.  Other yarns were "too good" for something I'm making to give away and I don't even know if the receiver will like it.  I finally opted to use Patons "Decor" in a dark, dark green and Bernat Mosaic in a colour with some pink.  The Mosaic is slightly thicker, but I hoped it wouldn't show.

 I crocheted the little heart in pink for the one mitten because there ended up being no pink in it's stripes.

I made the mitten first, using numbers from Ann Budd's "Handy Book of Patterns".  On the LK150, 40sts, I think T5.5.  20 rows of ribbing.  Then, I worked on the cupholder.  I did the cuff the same, then took half the stitches, and put two rows on waste yarn.  Then I continued over all the stitches for twice the length of the regular mitten.  Took off on waste yarn.

Sewed up the mitt.  It was a little big on me (could have been knit tighter too).  Fiddled with the cupholder mitten, and realized it was too long.  Sewed the long edges together (did the cuff, then skipped the few couple rows where the waste yarn was, then sewed most of the long side), then pinned the cast off to the waste yarn.  WAY too big.  I ripped back and tried again with a disposable coffee cup.  Still too big.  Ripped out a bit more, and it was perfect.  Grafted the open cast off to the two (half) rows on the waste yarn.

I wanted a bottom.  A while ago, I had made a newborn hat in this yarn, but it was a little small.  I ripped it back so I could use the yarn, and somehow, I had a crochet circle that was nearly a perfect fit!  I sewed it in along the seam line.  Added my personalized tag, and wrapped her up.

I made this on December 18/19.  I'm a member of the Yahoo group for Machine Knitting.  I wasn't really keeping up with the group digests.  Last week I got a chance to look through them more closely--especially one message that said it was a "surprise pattern" (and posted on December 14).  I checked the messages and someone had posted a picture of their completed surprise.  It was a cupholder mitten!!  I can't follow along her pattern very well just by reading it (my fault, not hers).  I will have to re-read it really well and try to visualize it.  If only I had read it right away--and knew what it was supposed to be!   The one thing I'd change with my pattern is to do some plain knitting after the ribbing and make the opening where the thumb of the regular mitten splits off (my opening was at the base of the thumb, and the ribbing gets pulled up to compensate).

Of  course, I didn't write down how many rows I ended up for the cupholder.  And I didn't weigh them.  And the girl that won them doesn't have a kitchen scale.  And now that I've remembered that some of the yarn came from a project already accounted for...bah.  I'm sticking with the 100gr estimate I already included in last year's totals.  I based that on there being 100gr left of the two balls, which were each 100gr.