Tag Archives: mitts

Knitted gifts

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You remember the 1898 knitted cap I made for Mr. Aitch with overdyed yarn?  Well, it needed some fingerless gloves for company.

I didn’t have enough yarn leftover and I knew I’d never get the same color to match.  That’s why it’s important to get enough of the same dye lot when knitting (or crocheting) any yarny project.  So I overdyed another skein of yarn but starting out with a totally different color.

Using the same brand of yarn and the same food dye colors, I wanted to get something that would coordinate with the original overdye.

I added some leftover Rit dye, a mixture of blue and black, from another project.  The blue and green food coloring just wasn’t covering that bright coral color.

Close enough for a contrast but still in the same family.

Original overdye

The new overdye

The fingerless glove pattern is the Don’t skid, honey! by Justyna Lorkowska.  The zigzags reminded me of smoke and Mr. Aitch needed a new pair to keep his hands warm when he smokes a cigar (in the garage in the winter). 

You can see the two colors on the palm.

Both together.

We’ve had some bitter cold temperature here lately and Mr. Aitch has worn the gloves inside to keep his hands warm while at the computer.

 

 

New LYS

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I don’t know if you remember that the one and only local yarn store (LYS) closed last year. The nearest one after that was 75 miles away. I bought some great yarn at great prices but one can only knit from stash if one has the right yarn for the project.

I’m on a yarn diet but I did need to buy some yarn for a special project and though I tried to use some from my stash, the yarn wasn’t the right yarn for the project.

Now there’s NEW local yarn store!  Frostburg Fiber Depot is 20 miles away but that’s better than 75 miles.

The husband of one of the co-owners raises alpacas and so it’s a win-win-win for her, him and yarn lovers.

I only found out about this new yarn store when I received a gift certificate from there earlier this year. While running some errands last week, I decided to check out the store and use my certificate for some yarn for the special project.

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I found the special yarn and some Cascade 220 in yellow to knit myself something to go with my new winter coat which, by the way, is yellow!

That’s when I discovered they carry Malabrigo yarn!  I have one hank of Malabrigo that a blog friend gifted me a few years ago when I commented on her blog about never having seen, touched, squished, or smelled said goodness.  It’s beautiful but the wrong color.  And now I can find more and it’s only 20 miles away!

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I couldn’t wait for better light as I wanted to get knitting right away!

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Special project…   And more true to life colors.

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It is such a treat to knit with this yarn.  I’m in love.  ❤

 

 

The “other” mitts

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The Shaadi Mitts got the better of me so I decided to knit another pair of Shirl’s Mitts for my daughter.

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I started them while waiting for our plane to take off on our way to visit her and finished them a few days later. It’s hard to knit with three grandkids all wanting one’s attention.

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Cleckheaton Country 8 ply yarn in color 2250. They call it light green but I’d call it pistachio. I believe this color has been discontinued.

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And another one bites the dust

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The Shaadi Mitts I began last January then restarted them because they were too large (even with the right gauge) are no more.

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The pattern notes indicated that these mitts are challenging and I thought I was up to the task.  Well, sometime last spring I lost my knitting mojo and allowed them to languish in my knitting basket for months and months.

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And when I picked them up again, I forgot about how to hold the dominant yarn vs background yarn.

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The dominant yarn color goes under the background yarn color where as the receding (background) yarn color goes over.  It doesn’t seem like it would be that important but it is.  Very.

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The longer strand of yarn is the one under the shorter upper yarn which makes the longer yarn stand out more.  The shorter upper yarn pushes the longer strand out.

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You can see here that the purl stitches recede in the lower section but are more prominent in the upper section where I reversed the dominant and receding yarns.  For a better explanation visit these sites: Knitting Daily, Paper Tiger, and Ysolda Teague.

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On the front side the circles and spirals appeared smaller in the last sections.  This was all due to yarn dominance.

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(Oops!  I misspelled spiral.)

Then I screwed up the Bavarian twisted stitch.

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The mitts were still huge and I just wasn’t having any fun knitting them anymore.  What do you do about a unfun project?  Let it hibernate, rip it out, continue with the drudgery or throw it away?

Good-bye Shaadi Mitts.  Maybe another time.

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