Jennie's Hooked Mitts

Hourglass sweater is painfully close to being finished: only the sleeve and bottom hems to finish, but I'm exceedingly unmotivated to do them for some reason. Must. Pull. Through.

In the meantime, I made Jennie some mittens because she (gasp!) was walking all over Maine in the winter with bare hands. Blasphemy.

Pattern: Tweedy Mittens from Kpixie; hook idea from Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick.
Yarn: some leftover TLC Cara Mia that Mel gave me months ago. I don't know what the color's called, but I love it because it reminds me of green tea and sage and sea glass
Needles: US4 DPNs
Techniques Learned: making the hook, I suppose.
Recipient: Jennie B.

Notes:
- Pretty easy project. This is the only pattern I've used for plain mittens; I actually have never done it with stripes though I like the way it looks in the pictures.
- This yarn is nice. It's mostly synthetic with a little angora, and feels more like cut-up stripes of supersoft fabric than plied yarn.
- That's it. I just needed an excuse to post here.

HAND... THINGS.

A year ago, maybe, it was scarves. It was more of a coincidence then; I was branching out into greater things like lace and cables, but couldn't be bothered with the nuisances of double-pointed needles, inc/dec shaping, and picking up stitches involved with more complicated work. Sure, I knit a few hats here and there, but they weren't (and still aren't) as fun.

It's no secret that I'm currently in a torrid love affair with all wintry clothing. Ever. The first time I saw one of the outerwear Old Navy commercials involving lots of fake snow, smiling faces and cheesy voiceovers this year, I nearly melted: I could happily shop for jackets, sweaters and scarves all through the summer. The clincher, though? Hand-things.

Once described as "the sock hipster's cousin" (Fig and Plum), handwear is truly the thing: relatively quick, small, un-boring to knit, satisfying, not to mention show-off-able: while socks can take longer and are less visible, handwarmers attract attention almost immediately. The impatient braggart's paradise!

My favorite mittens to knit at the moment are the Tweedy Mittens from kpixie; so far I've made a few pairs in plain colors because they a) fit well and b) are easy to fiddle with, like I had to for my freakishly long fingers. The first ones I knit for myself, with Cascade 220 Tweed in a dark green, very quickly became Invincible and hence my favorite pair ever. Too bad it only took a few weeks for me to lose them. :(

For I-don't-even-know-how-long-now, I've been wanting to knit a pair of Broad Street Mittens for myself, and over Thanksgiving I very nearly did. I used some yarn I'd Kool-Aid-dyed a few months ago, and finished one mitten minus the thumb. It took me that long to realize that a) I didn't like the way the colors were pooling, b) the way it fit on my hand, or c) the stiffness of the fabric--I'd been careless and using a needle size too small. That's frustration. :) So that project went kaput, though aspirations for other convertible mitts remain.

I have yet to actually knit a pair of gloves, just because, while I've done it before for half-length fingers, they're intimidating and I'm terrified of the holes they make at the base. Talk about weird phobias. I'm sure I'll get around to it, though.

For the past few days, spending time idly online, I've been looking at--you guessed it--mitten, glove, and something-in-between patterns. Thrummed mittens are a concept so intriguing that I can't wait to get my hands on some roving to try it out. Corazon from the new Knitty is delightful--almost certainly a future project. Eunny's Anemoi mittens are simply awe-inspiring (but I'm going to wait a while before I try those!).

For some reason, I'd never been a fan of fingerless mitts/hobo gloves before, but recently it's all changed. It was probably Laura's Endpaper Mitts (pattern here), which basically had me jump the gun, all ready to try stranded colorwork for the first time: it's a good thing I had no suitable yarn handy, or Kat's scarf will never have finished. Then, at the mall today, others kept drawing my notice, begging for duplication: a pointelle pair I saw at American Eagle, and a cabled/seed stitch pair at Urban. When looking for the specific cable stitch online earlier (fruitlessly--I'll have to check out a book from the library later), I unveiled countless other stitch patterns that could potentially be incorporated into armwarmers. As usual, I'm terribly ambitious with very little follow-through, but it's exciting nonetheless.

Anyway, I just thought I'd take the time today to profess my undying love for all knitted hand-things. I'm still working on a striped scarf for my friend Kat, but will hopefully finish and post pictures of it soon.

Alligator Mitts

Lately I've had such little patience with my projects that the last fully finished object of mine was done about a month ago -- and that, only after about another month of putting off sewing on the eyes. Sheesh.

I knew pretty soon after receiving the book (as a secret Eid buddy gift form Uthayla last year) that I would make these cuties, but only got around to it this semester.

Pattern: Later 'Gator Mitts from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation (Debbie Stoller)

Yarn: Cascade 220 in the colors called for; I left the book at school so I'm not sure exactly which ones.
Needles: US6 DPNs
Techniques Learned: Mattress stitch, French knots

Recipient: Self

Some notes:
- The pattern worked pretty smoothly, except that I was dumb and didn't use smaller needles on the cuff like I was supposed to. So, the cuffs are huge, and I have to tuck my shirt sleeves into them if I want the mittens to stay on nicely. True, this'll probably help in terms of warmth, but it's a pain because I'm finicky about it and can't take them on and off easily with a jacket on.
- As a rule, I like my mittens to be a little snug, so these are a little roomy for my taste; on the bright side, I can easily wear another pair (or gloves) underneath.
- On the first one, Mister Mister, I bound off the upper "lip" too tightly; as a result, it curls up irritatingly. (This is his brother-slash-arch-enemy, Oh No, you're looking at.)
- I forgot: there is an error in this pattern; thankfully, I knew about it beforehand. You can find the errata here.
- I had a sort of googley-eye crisis. I originally bought two pairs (when I still had plans to make a pair for my sister) in two different sizes. I'd sewn on the bigger pair on Mister Mister upon completion, but when the time came for Oh No, I couldn't find the other anywhere. And so, after much procrastination, I just used the smaller ones. Except I was too lazy (laziness: you'll find much of it on this blog) to actually switch the originals on Mister Mister, so the brothers have different-sized eyes. Oh Well. It makes them unique.

Oh No (left) and Mister Mister.