Hold My Hand, Pt 2

A few more mitts. The orange/black ones are Huey's. He wore them a couple times, they got wet, he tried his felted black ones from last year (instead of the store bought gloves he INSISTED were the best), and declared the felted mitts are the best thing in the whole entire world, and these orange ones are too small. He didn't like the orange wools I had on hand, so I took one that was the orangeyist and dyed it in the microwave with some Easter egg dye that had been already dissolved and hanging around in a Mason jar for 4 years. They have a nice kettle dyed look, but I think he wanted oranger. And, I ran out. So to match them up, I topped them off with black, used the bit of orange left to extend the cuff downwards and casted off in black. In retrospect, I should have ripped and re-knitted, using the black as stripes. He wanted purple at first.
They were done on the KnitSmart, using my basic handknit pattern. Even though it meant moving 12? st outwards on each side every other row while making the thumb gusset, it wasn't too bad actually. Still quicker than by hand. Somehow they did end up a little pointed.
Lucy wasn't too happy with her minty green mitts---there was a hole at the top where the sts were gathered together. And, being Patons Decor, they weren't terribly warm. I made the purple and pink striped ones in the lower left as a suprise. They are Patons Classic Wool. Don't recall which pattern I did off hand, but Lucy isn't too fussy, so I probably did the gathered top one again, but when I do it, I do one row of K2tog (and move the sts over so there's only a couple empty needles in the middle), then another row of K2tog, again, moving the sts over to fill the empty needles. I try not to have too many sts to actually gather at the top. They look like the shortrow thumbs. She wore them a bit, I think the thumbs are too long or too short....then she insisted she had to have store bought mittens....in February, when the patio sets are being put on display. Her $15 "Good" brand store bought mittens did not last two weeks before they started falling apart. I'm not sure where these mitts are; I think they are in her basket at school.

The other pink and purple ones are mine. I wanted another pair of 100% wool mitts for walking; I find the 100% wool ones are a lot warmer than the 50% wool ones. However, I had only one pair (the ones that got frozen into a snowbank last year), and they are getting felted and ratty. I have been a little traumatized by the Yarn Harlot's daughter saying only knitters wear mis-matched accessories. I thought that I was being clever and unique by matching the colours, but different yarn. I don't have any yarn to make a complete 'set' or finish off any of the sets I have to make them truely match. But someday I hope to have a pink hat. I used Headwaters Wool. I had to use two strands of the pink, and one of the purple. I had been told that would make the finer yarn the same as the thicker yarn. I wish I could have gotten a good picture. The mitts were sort of rippled--you can sort of see how the purple pops up. I gently felted the mitts to try to even it out and thicken them up. They were too wide, but okay for length, but also too loosely knitted. I know felting shrinks more in length and I didn't want to lose much length. I ended up felting them twice, and they are much improved, not totally felted, but also not as warm as my other mitts. I used my handknitting pattern again. It was hard to get the mitt stretched to get all the thumb sts on the hooks. I think, I could take the other sts off on waste yarn or a holder, cast on the two side sts for the thumb, and knit the thumb first instead of at the end.

I really want to make the Vogue cover mitts from the winter issue. When I went to the K-W Knitter's Fair, Camilla Valley Farm had the yarn in their display but I had already spent too much. Then, when I was there in Nov to get the Fleece Artist mitten kit, I almost bought the yarn, but knew I needed to focus on the gift mittens. Now, winter is pretty much over, and her road is a mucky yucky trail....I wonder what she'd do if I placed a 'mail' order? LOL.

I also made Meg a pair of purple mitts, but no picture. I've been pretty lazy about photos. Not much knitting actually getting finished, but hopefully something new to show very soon!!!