Man-mitten Project
So it's time again to check my temperature and adjust my medication, because I must be crazy.
It all started with the Eugenia mitten. Let me see if I have a picture...
I'll add it later. They were made with the leftover yarn from the Serenity blanket.
This yarn was a gift from a friend of my mother's. It is Italian, I believe, by a brand called Gedifra, and it feels funny. I don't feel ungrateful saying that because it's the exact reason it was given to me. Anyway, the Eugenia looks lovely, feels a bit odd, and was crazy fast to knit.
Which is when the crazy struck.
I decided, if mittens were so quick to knit, why not knit them for Christmas presents? Next thing I know I've got four ravelry patterns and I'm at Joann's looking for an odd set of yarns. The four mittens will be for my three best friends and my mother. Now, I took a year and a half to knit a guy a scarf once, so I was expecting time and dedication to be an issue. But it soon became apparent there were a few issues I had not considered, for instance Ravelry and the big yarn brands use completely different scales for the weight of their yarns.
I came home and started on the mitten made with the thickest weight yarn. It's going to be the Gingersnap mitten in a burnt orange color for my friend Vicki, who loves orange. I zipped through most of that mitten in no time at all, and I was feeling pretty good about getting all of these mittens finished. Then Vicki contacted me and told me about the mitten she wanted me to knit, which was not the pattern I had started. Sigh. Might as well start Monkey's mittens.
No, her name's not really Monkey. Did you really need me to tell you that? She loves Sting. I knit her a fuzzy yellow and black scarf for her first birthday in college. She wanted mittens to match. Not fuzzy mittens, but Lotus mittens, with a lovely lace pattern on the back. I start in on them, and they look a little small. So I started to worry that I had messed up the yarn weights again. So I checked the rav page for the yarn I had (caron simply soft light, because caron simply soft is amazing), and it said the weight was correct. I double checked my needles, they were correct. So I kept going. I tried the mitten on after I'd knit past the thumb, and the mitten I was knitting MIGHT fit a five year old. Fantastic.
So I check the wraps per inch, and what caron and ravelry call a sport weight is more like a fingering weight. Unable to throw in the towel, I go up a needle size. So now they'll work out, barely, but you'll catch your death of cold with them.
Not all of the patterns are written by, shall we say, experienced pattern designers. I do not have the correct weight of yarn for Kat's mittens. And fingers on gloves scare the crap out of me.
What have I gotten myself into?
Hopefully I'll post soon with it all figured out.
It all started with the Eugenia mitten. Let me see if I have a picture...
I'll add it later. They were made with the leftover yarn from the Serenity blanket.
This yarn was a gift from a friend of my mother's. It is Italian, I believe, by a brand called Gedifra, and it feels funny. I don't feel ungrateful saying that because it's the exact reason it was given to me. Anyway, the Eugenia looks lovely, feels a bit odd, and was crazy fast to knit.
Which is when the crazy struck.
I decided, if mittens were so quick to knit, why not knit them for Christmas presents? Next thing I know I've got four ravelry patterns and I'm at Joann's looking for an odd set of yarns. The four mittens will be for my three best friends and my mother. Now, I took a year and a half to knit a guy a scarf once, so I was expecting time and dedication to be an issue. But it soon became apparent there were a few issues I had not considered, for instance Ravelry and the big yarn brands use completely different scales for the weight of their yarns.
I came home and started on the mitten made with the thickest weight yarn. It's going to be the Gingersnap mitten in a burnt orange color for my friend Vicki, who loves orange. I zipped through most of that mitten in no time at all, and I was feeling pretty good about getting all of these mittens finished. Then Vicki contacted me and told me about the mitten she wanted me to knit, which was not the pattern I had started. Sigh. Might as well start Monkey's mittens.
No, her name's not really Monkey. Did you really need me to tell you that? She loves Sting. I knit her a fuzzy yellow and black scarf for her first birthday in college. She wanted mittens to match. Not fuzzy mittens, but Lotus mittens, with a lovely lace pattern on the back. I start in on them, and they look a little small. So I started to worry that I had messed up the yarn weights again. So I checked the rav page for the yarn I had (caron simply soft light, because caron simply soft is amazing), and it said the weight was correct. I double checked my needles, they were correct. So I kept going. I tried the mitten on after I'd knit past the thumb, and the mitten I was knitting MIGHT fit a five year old. Fantastic.
So I check the wraps per inch, and what caron and ravelry call a sport weight is more like a fingering weight. Unable to throw in the towel, I go up a needle size. So now they'll work out, barely, but you'll catch your death of cold with them.
Not all of the patterns are written by, shall we say, experienced pattern designers. I do not have the correct weight of yarn for Kat's mittens. And fingers on gloves scare the crap out of me.
What have I gotten myself into?
Hopefully I'll post soon with it all figured out.
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