Yarn Along

I am very, very happy to announce: they are done!

So they didn’t get done for Christmas.  Technically I had planned enough time to get them done for Christmas, but I had not factored in how opinionated my husband is.  I mean that in the most respectful way.  He has good taste, and hates settling, and thinks I can do magical things with knitting needles.  While I take all of that as a compliment, there is reality to consider.

I love this pattern, and have made it a few times.  In fact, I’m wanting a pair for myself now.  Although I would follow the pattern exactly.  Because it’s a good pattern.  However, for Knut’s mittens, there were several modifications to the pattern.  He picked a pointy pattern, and then asked me to make it less pointy.  So after doing lots of planning on paper, I made it less pointy.  I ended up knitting the main portion longer, making the decrease section shorter, and then cast off the main pattern stitches leaving the 3 dark red side stitches on either end, and then took the edge portions of dark red and knit those further, to line the top edge, kitchener stitched them together to form a loop over the top edge, and then sewed the top edge down to the patterned cast off stitches so that the pattern flows more seamlessly.

Reading over that, even I don’t understand what I just wrote.  Let’s just say I made it less pointy and it was more complicated than it looks.

The most annoying part was that created so many more ends to weave in.  I hate weaving in ends with a passion.  However, I really liked how this turned out.

He wanted me to make the thumbs less pointy too, but at that point of the project, I told him he’d have to live with pointy thumbs.  He smiled and said he’d be happy to.  I may or may not have been holding a knitting needle aggressively at the time.

The other modification was with the lining.  The pattern has this great attached liner.  I made a full attached liner for one of the mittens, but when Knut tried the completed mitten on, he said it was too hot and he was afraid they wouldn’t get much use.  This confused me because he had chosen the pattern because of the liner, and now he didn’t want it.  He explained that sometimes it would be nice to have a liner, and sometimes it wouldn’t.  So I ripped out the whole complete liner, and made the liners detachable.

To do that, I just made regular mittens, using the original pattern.  I cast on a few less stitches than the pattern calls for (for the liner) and did a few inches for a cuff (another thing on his wish list), then increased to the regular # of stitches that the pattern says, and in stockinette stitch continued on with no modifications.  Easy peasy there…except the whole ripping out a whole liner part.

The best part about this whole project is how excited Knut is about them.  He thinks they’re awesome, and tells me that quite often.  He wants to wear them outside all the time.  He has been showing them to people when they come to our house, even when they were in progress.  Whenever I’ve picked up any other project, he’s been giving me these puppy eyes like “aren’t you going to work on my mittens?”

So I’m glad that I can now work on all other knitting projects guilty free.  Part of the reason I usually have so many projects going is I get bored, and like to move from project to project to project.  I always circle back, but I like the variety.  Although this was a very pleasing knit, I’m glad that I am not tied to it anymore.

I’m linking up with Ginny again for her knitting/reading blog party.  I’ll not forget to write about reading next week.  I promise.  I’ll be good and throw a good book in the picture.  I may even get some modeling pictures of Knut and the mittens.