FO Friday #10: Hootenany

I present to you the adorably woolly face of evil.

Hoot?

These little owl faces represent five hours of work... for just the eyeballs and the beaks! Each mitten had about 20 or so ends to weave in, too. However, they did come out darn cute and they are pretty much exactly what my coworker commissioned for her little daughter so hopefully the little owl-obsessed girl loves them!

The one on the right looks extra surprised.

I used Cascade 220 superwash in an appropriately owl-y color for the body of the mitts held double. I knit most of one mitten before deciding I needed to cast on a few more stitches because although 2-year-old hands are tiny, they do grow and the fabric was extra thick so I wanted to give a little more room in there. But the rest of the mitten knitting went fairly smoothly and I followed this blog's tips for making the white 'brow' part at the top. I felt like a mitten-knitting-genious... until I hit the eyeballs.

Attempt #1: single crochet circle. Attempt #2: knit in the round with lots of increases.

 

I even have crochet the old college try for this project (a.k.a. an hour of internet searching when I should've been doing other things). This only confirmed for me that I still hate crochet. It feels entirely unnatural to me. Even the basic chain stitch comes out all wonky and as I'm using my fingers to pull the loops over the hook, I can't help wishing for an implement to help in the process... like another needle. Knitter to the core, I suppose. So then I tried knitting a tiny circle in the round with lots of increases but that was too ruffly. Finally, I cast on 4 sts to a DPN and did short rows within those 4 sts until I had a curved strip of knitting long enough to kitchener the two ends together into an approximate circle. Phew! I don't keep a lot of superwash yarn lying around but I had some Bugga mini-skeins that I used for the brow and the irises, Cascade 220 sw for the pupils, and Socks that Rock Heavyweight scraps for the beaks. In sum, these mittens are quite cute and came out just as I'd hoped but I will likely never make them again... the finishing was far too fiddly.

Click below to see more FO's!

A Mitten Story

This particular FO is a first for me, so I am very excited about it. I've been living with a heavy burden of shame: I have been knitting for six years and have never ever finished a pair of mittens... until now. Before I show you these miraculous mittens, though, let's have a little backstory!

Attempt #1:

Malabrigo Worsted, colorway Natural

This magnificent thrummed mitten was my first attempt at keeping my fingers warm during winter. I began this pair three years ago in October 2009. I  modified a cable mitten pattern to include thrums, which are basically just bits of fiber that you stick in your knitting so that the inside is puffy and warm and amazing. Since I knew nothing about fiber at the time, I bought the first pretty fiber I found at a farmer's market, which turned out to be Pygora goat fiber--incredibly luxurious stuff. When I told the woman at the stall that I wanted it for mitten lining she sounded surprised and was like "That would make really nice mittens." Anyway, this pair is one mitten complete and I'm pretty sure I've misplace my notes, though I do hope to figure out how to knit its mate at some point.

Attempt #2:

Malabrigo Yarn Chunky, colorway Mariposa

This mitten was an early attempt at designing my own pattern. I began this one in November 2010. I still really like the pattern but couldn't quite get the numbers and fit right, seeing as I had not completed any bulky weight mittens at the time. This looks ok but it was way too snug. I still hope to come back to this pattern now that I have a better idea of mitten size/fit.

Attempt #3:

BMFA Silk Mawatas, colorway Aurora Borealis

This project was my first attempt at knitting with silk hankies/mawatas. I began these in January 2012. If you click on the 'mawata' tag to the left of this post on the blog you will see all the posts I've made regarding these mittens. I still really want to finish these, too, but they are kind of annoying to knit. You have to pause every couple of rows to prepare the next silk hankie for knitting and it gets a bit messy and rough on the hands. Someday!

Attempt #4:

The Sanguine Gryphon QED, colorways Radius and iSkein

I am still entirely in love with the pattern for this project, but it is another one that is just somewhat unpleasant to knit. It involves thick yarn on small needles and pages and pages of cable charts. The knitting hurts my hands a bit and the charts make this a terrible "pick-up-and-go" project, which are the kinds of projects that tend to be doomed to the UFO pile in my knitterly life. Since I do love the pattern so much I have not yet given up, but starting two pairs of fiddly mittens in January 2012 was obviously much too ambitious.

The Finished Pair:
But finally, three years after my first attempt at mittens, I bring you these:

Malabrigo Yarn Chunky, colorway Lettuce

These are the Zephyr Fingerless Mitts pattern (with mitten option) by Tracey/a.k.a. Riverpoet. I modified them quite a bit for fit and personal preference, but it's a free pattern with a fun stitch that creates a great woven effect that works well with solid yarns and even better with variegated colorways.

I like my mitten cuffs snug but the hand part roomy so I mashed together the S/M and M/L sizes. I moved the thumb one stitch palmward to mimic more closely how the thumb is actually positioned on the hand. Finally, I extended the stitch pattern to the top of the mitten and changed the decreases so that they worked like a sock toe. In short, these mittens were a great learning experience in teaching me how I like my mittens. And the best part? I knit them in five days. FIVE DAYS.

Why yes, I do look pleased with myself.

All that waiting, all those chilly-fingered-mornings shoveling snow and scraping ice... and I finished this pair of mittens in five days. Seems crazy, doesn't it?

Some Progress

Even though I've been working 14-hour days trying and failing to get my thesis data to model correctly, I have been making some progress on my four 'active' works-in-progress lately. Time for update pics!

Sock 1 of my South Fork Socks is complete, with the second one begun. This pattern is really enjoyable, I highly recommend it.

STR Mediumweight, colorway Puck's Mischief

This is sock 2 of my made-up-as-I-go ribby holiday socks.

STR Lightweight, colorway X-Mas Rock

 The first is done and since this one is so close,  I think I will bring it with me to my Fiasco's family's house today while we visit. That will give me a couple of hours of driving time to knit on them and since they are so simple, I might even be able to finish them today!

Here is the progress on my super-fussy-yet-wonderful Flint mittens:

The Sanguine Gryphon QED, colorways Radius and iSkein (blue)

The yarn is quite thick and the needles quite small, so the cabling gets tough to do at times, but I think they are going to be fantastic when they are finished... and practically bulletproof.

Finally, the metal needles I was waiting for came in and the mawata/silk hankie mittens were so much easier to work than when I was using bamboo.

Blue Moon Fiber Arts Mawata, colorway Aurora Borealis

It's not the neatest knitting I've ever done, the thickness of the silk fluff varied considerable in the first few layers that I prepared for knitting, but now I know what thickness I like so when I separate more layers I will know better how much to stretch them out before knitting with them. I love the way these feel, they are amazingly soft. I am using Kollage Square DPNs in size 5. Square DPNs are supposed to be easier on your hands and for some people they tighten up their gauge while they knit as well. I've noticed that mine tightens up a bit, which is good for things like socks on thin yarn where I would need to use needles smaller than 2.25mm to get a tight enough gauge, which I don't like doing. My only issue with the Kollage needles is that they are very blunt, so it is difficult for me to manipulate stitches like K2tog or SSK or cables. So I reserve my square DPNs for plain knitting, but I do like using them.

That's what I've got going on. What's your favorite WIP at the moment?

Silk Is Fluffy

Unspun silk is super fluffy! I was surprised. The other night I took my mawata / silk hankies and started playing around.

BMFA Mawata, colorway Aurora Borealis

I peeled off a layer, stretched it out until the center became so thin it turned into a big ring of fiber, then broke the ring and yanked on it until it evened out thickness-wise.

Ball-o'-fluff!

I then took my newly-formed cotton candy fluff and cast on for some mittens.

Needle-o'-fluff!

You can see that I haven't quite got the even thickness thing down yet. The stitches to the left are kind of sport-weight sized and the stitches in the middle are worsted/aran weight sized. No matter since I'm frogging this anyway. I suffered through several rows before I realized that the reason every stitch was being a pain in the butt to knit was probably because I was using bamboo needles to which the unspun silk clung too tightly. I'm waiting on some new metal needles to arrive before I continue with my fluffy mitten adventures. I'm excited, how about you?

Midnight Knitting

It's totally normal to stay up until 3am knitting because you didn't get home from work until midnight and you were just so excited about mittens you couldn't wait to cast on...right?

I swatched while reading (the Kindle is a bookish knitter's best friend, I swear):

On the Kindle: "Hit by a Farm" by Catherine Friend

I tried and failed (again) at the provisional cast on, so I said "screw you, provisional cast on, you're ugly and I don't like you!" and just went with my tried-and-true nice-and-stretchy Twisted German cast on. Instead of unzipping the waste yarn and placing live stitches on the needles, I just picked up the required amount from the cast on edge, easy peasy. I mean, it's for the inside of a mitten cuff, I don't care if it's invisible!

A many-needled knitted thing

I then played a fun game of knitted fabric origami to make that look like this:

DPNs within DPNs!

Finally got to knitting the hem together:

Yup, knitting stitches together across two different-sized needles while alternating two different colors... crazy.

And ended up with a beauty of a mitten cuff:

Love that braid!

This pattern (Flint by Jared Flood) is extraordinarily fussy but I love it already. We will ignore the fact that that little slip of knitting took me nearly 3 hours to produce. Whatever. All in the name of pretty mittens!

Mitten Madness

A while back, the Yarn Harlot made a blog post about her Mawata mittens that started something of a silk-hanky-buying craze at Blue Moon Fiber Arts. It was so neat to see her stack of whisper-thin layers of cocoon silk turn into rustic, colorful mittens. I instantly wanted to try it and just got some in the mail yesterday:

BMFA Mawata / Silk Hankies, colorway Aurora Borealis

These feel incredibly soft and light, I absolutely cannot wait to turn them into mittens. Silk is many times warmer than wool, so even though they are lightweight they should keep my hands nice and cozy, if winter ever arrives. (50 degrees F in January, really?) I actually had the chance to see how silk hankies are made at a knitting event at my local yarn shop. I got to pull the cocoon off the pupa and stretch it out and over the square frame to dry. It's a little bit squicky, especially if you don't like insects, but they're dead already anyway and it was too cool not to try. Each hanky is comprised of layer upon layer of these stretched out cocoons, it's really neat.

So many layers!

There's another pair of mittens I'm really excited about, as well. This obsession is particularly strange because I'm really not into knitting mittens, I've yet to complete a pair, I'm easily confused by cables and am usually not interested in 8 page patterns or fussy knitting, but I saw these mittens and just had to make them ASAP :

Copyright Brooklyn Tweed / Jared Flood

Those are the Flint pattern by Jared Flood. I love the cables, the texture, the colorwork braid. LOVE. As soon as my Mawata mittens are finished, I will be casting on those lovely, fussy little things, and it will be glorious!   :-D