Wednesday, October 8, 2014

A knitting experiment

The idea of holding yarn double has really taken hold of my brain.  So many possibilities for super fast knits!  Or, perhaps, for super dense knits!  Which is handy (forgive the pun) if you're thinking about mittens.

As it happens I think about mittens a lot, and I felt pretty hard when I saw a couple of pairs of Elizabeth Zimmerman's mitred mitts over at Sel et Poivre.  They just looked so beautiful and, hey! I have a copy of the book that has the pattern in it. Plus some lopi-style yarn from Stoddart... mohair, wool, hugely saturated orangey colours... yum.  And two new sets of 6mm square knitting needles.  What could go wrong?

First up: choosing whether to hold two strands of orangey yarn, or one strand orangey and one strand undyed greyish brown.


Hmmmm, which is better?


Yeah, I thought so too.

Held double on big needles, you get what should be a super fast knit.  I mean, in no time, those rounds should be just zipping along.  Zip zip zip.  Except, erm, mitres.  They kind of push the length down into that deep point in the middle of your wrist, you know?  To say nothing of how not fun any sort of closed stitch increase system you use to make the mitre happen.  A yarn over wouldn't be bad... chilly, yes, but pretty.  Instead, I opted for no holes and did 'make one', which is just a bore on big yarn spun without much in the way of elasticity.  Definitely worth doing with super squishy yarn, but, well.  H'mmmm.

I got about this far before I saw what was standing ahead of me....


... and then I just had to stop.  It wasn't fun, and I love - LOVE - this yarn, and I can't wait to pair my bright orange mitts with the bright orange hat I plan to knit myself when I get around to spinning the fibre I bought a couple of weekends again, and I think I deserve a project that's 157% bliss.

(also, these mitts were just going to be majorly too wide, not to mention that I am pretty sure I didn't have enough yarn to pull off the design.  so probably it was smart to pull the plug and rip it all out.)

I'm happy I didn't go on with all this, and I'm happy I know I will get 18 stitches to 4 inches with this yarn/needle combo.  And I'm really, really happy that Ravelry lets you search patterns based on gauge, too.

Hope your project plans aren't thwarted today - see you tomorrow! 

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