Wednesday, May 4, 2011

wintersong mittens

herringbone mittens
It's May. And yet, today I found myself wearing my winter jacket. I had been hesitating posting these since I didn't want to jinx anything, but since the weather is already jinxed, what is there left to lose?

I knit these in December, which meant that my hands were very cold in November and December since I refused to buy perfectly warm $2.99 gloves. I loved this pattern by Elli Stubenrauch. It was my first time doing colorwork and reading a chart, both skills that I felt I had, in theory.

My goal was to use yarn I already had and I finally settled on Misti Alpaca Worsted and Berocco Vintage Wool. I loved the combination of the wool and alpaca because the alpaca makes it warmer and softer but the wool is sturdy and keeps the mittens from stretching out. They received quite a bit of abuse this winter- gripping bus poles, being dropped in dirty melted snow, picking up snow for snowball fights, etc. And they held up exceptionally.

I added a few more rows than called for in the ribbed cuff for extra warmth and would probably have decreased the number of stitches because the cuff ended up being way too loose for me.

And I HAD to make the tops of the thumbs removable for texting purposes. I try to save time by responding to texts while I'm waiting for buses.

These mittens received so many compliments that by the time the bartender was calling me, "Mittens," it was a little bit ridiculous.

close-up

Project Info:
Yarn: 0.5-ish skein Misti Alpaca Royal (I think- this was very old) in white; Berocco Vintage (Purple)
Needle Size: ?
Pattern: Herringbone Mittens by Elli Stubenrauch
Modifications: Removable Thumb Tops; Additional Rows to the cuff

Needs-to-be-updated Ravelry Project Page.

1 comment:

Christielli said...

LOVE the mittens! They are gorgeous! I'm impressed with your knitting skills. I've never done any colourwork before. I'm a van of variegated yarn for now. But seriously, I'd love to attempt these one day.

It's been so cold this spring! No wonder you needed to wear the mitts!