Friday, March 18, 2016

Smitten with my knitting

I am feeling more than a little besotted with the way this fingerless glove has come out so far:


Of course I still have to sort out the thumb, but I'm hopeful my very simple solution will be effective - or at least, effective enough to suit my needs.

The yarn is some leftover Viola in Emily's 'Orchard' colourway and while I'm not confident she still produces that particular one, her others do often feature this speckling of colour.  I am pretty sure I could have planned for six months and not have found a better stitch to display it to advantage. 


Also: this lace pattern is just complicated enough to be interesting without being a hassle to keep track of, which is pretty much my favourite setup.  Yay!!!

It's going to be super hard, but I'm going to do the thumb on this mitt before I move on to the other, even though I'm dying to see how the two look together even without thumbs.  I mean, this never happens: even though it did take me a whole day to find the yarn I wanted and the stitch I liked and the numbers that worked, the end result is easy and logical and balanced.  It's like writing, when a story just falls into your lap and all you have to do is type it up. That's not how writing works normally so you have to celebrate when it happens!



I was planning to do a strip of stocking stitch down both sides of the hand and knit lace for front and back, but when it came to the point I did the palm in plain stocking stitch - I like to have long stretches of knitting regardless, but I find it's more functional to have a flat fabric where you're holding things. 

Yum!  I'm so excited for these, and I can already imagine a pair wrapped up in plain paper with a pretty string, to give for next Christmas.  But I shouldn't get ahead of myself because hello: still have to knit the mate.  Gah. 

Well, maybe I can get that done over the weekend and enjoy them a bit before the weather's too warm even for fingerless mitts.  Hope you get some fun knitting in this weekend and I'll see you Monday!

4 comments:

Barb Fullerton said...

I love the fingerless mitts and the lace pattern. Is there a name for that lace pattern that you would share?

Marianne said...

I love the color of the yarn, will you be sharing the pattern in the future or did I miss that post? Has been hectic here,but hopefully things will be better soon 😃. Hope you have a great weekend!

Mary Keenan said...

Barb, it's called English Mesh Lace in Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns (the blue book) - if you have a copy, it's at the bottom of page 193. If the mitts really work I'll definitely share the pattern for them though :^)

Mary Keenan said...

Marianne, I hope to share the pattern, for sure - have to make sure it works first. The mitt I've done feels a tiny bit tight on my hand so I'll need to test it with a different sock yarn too, and/or add a few stitches... the yarn I've used here is I think just a tiny bit finer than my usual fingering choices and than the base yarn Emily uses now, too. I'll keep you posted! Hang in there - hope you're having a great weekend too :^)