The Thingies

I went on a buying jag when some of my favorite yarn went on a very good sale. Now I am on a quest to use it up. I like this self-striping yarn. The colorway is pretty and looks great in a hat. I wanted to see how it looks on a pair of fingerless mitts.

This pattern, Malabrigo Hand Thingies, is perfect for this yarn. It knits up almost like stockinette, but the slipped stitches add a bit of interest. The mitts were a little tight for me, but perfect for Robyn. I will knit up this pattern again and add a couple of stitches to modify it for me.

Fetch These

"Fetching" is one of the most popular patterns on Ravelry. There are over 17,700 projects listed and tons more have it in their queue. It is easy to see why. It is a lovely pattern. Nice cables that twist toward your thumb and the 4x1 ribbing gives it a different look from many of the other fingerless mitts. I did feel the need to play around with the thumb. I like a thumb gusset. It doesn't pull the knitting out of shape like many of the other types of thumbs do. Sometimes I get a bit of a thrill that I feel accomplished enough to be comfortable modifying a pattern to suit my needs.

I used some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran that I had bought for another project. I loved knitting with this yarn. It was a good choice for these mitts.

I Love a Good Waffle

Here's another pair of fingerless mitts. Yup. Another one. They are fun to knit and go quickly, so therefore I knit them. This one was a test knit of "Waffle Mitts". The pattern was easy to follow and they turned out cute. I went through my waffle hat phase a while back. These mitts would go well with one of those. Hummm...note to self...hat + mitts.

Unbreak My Heart

I have started checking in the Free Pattern Testers forum on Ravelry. Since starting to write some of my own patterns, I am interested in the process of getting patterns tested. To this point, I have tested my own. I found a pattern I was interested in testing. I contacted the designer and was chosen to be a tester. I enjoyed knitting the pattern and the mitts are adorable. I am still not sure if I am brave enough to put one of my patterns up for testing, but I am loving the two test knits I have participated in and look forward to doing more. This pattern is Broken Spiral Mitts by Stephanie Benning.

These mitts are #7 in my 11 fingerless mitts in 2011.

You Are Here

The February KAL in the Fingerless Glove Fanatics on Ravelry is colorwork. I have never done knitting that requires me to use multiple colors of yarn within a row of knitting. I thought I would give it a try. There is a designer, SpillyJane, who designs mittens that make me drool. She has a fun sense of humor and that comes out in her mitten patterns. She has mittens with cupcakes, hamburgers, pints of beer, bacon...as well as some that are just lovely to behold. I was not brave enough to give the cupcake mittens a go (those are my favorite), but I did find a pair that I was willing to try. These are from her pattern, Quo Vadis. It is a bit tricky to do stranded knitting. You carry both yarns across the back of your knitting using one or the other to make a stitch. It is hard to know how much tension you need in your yarn. Too much and the mitten is tight and puckers. Too much and the mitts don't come out the same. One will be a bit larger. I seemed to err on the too little side on the first one. It is tighter than I would prefer. The second one is just right in size, but is a bit larger than the first. It may be something only I can see, but I think I did a pretty good job for my first attempt. Am I ready for the cupcake mittens? Only if someone else makes them.

This is #6 in my 11 fingerless mitts in 2011 challenge.

La Mia Bellezza

For Christmas, I knit Robyn's roommate, Alyce, a pair of fingerless mitts inspired by the more "Twilight". I am not a fan and I don't know if she is either. I just liked the way the mittens looked. I decided to knit another pair, this time making them shorter. One of the wonderful things about Ravelry is that the knitters will often take the time to put into their project pages information on how they modified a pattern. You can see what they did and then take that information to use in your project. I used two modifications on these mitts. One to change them from mittens to fingerless mitts. With the cable pattern, I wanted to see what was a good point in the pattern to stop and bind off. The other was to make them shorter. The original pattern has the mittens going 3/4 of the way to the elbow. I wanted them around 1 1/2 inch past the wrist. Both of the mods worked great. I made my own additional mod by making the palm in seed stitch. I like how the palm area turned out. If I make them again, I will play with the palm area a little, just to center it a bit more. I think they turned out great.

This is #5 in my 11 fingerless mitts in 2011.

No Wool For You

I always got a kick out of when the Soup Nazi was on Seinfeld. We occasionally work in the "No ____ for you!" into our conversations. I thought these would be cute fingerless mitts to try, but since I don't have a recipient in mind, I always knit them up in acrylic. That way I know they will not need special treatment if given to someone who forgets that kind of stuff. The pattern is called "Lofty Wool Cable Mittens" and I usually change up the name of my project when uploading it to Ravelry. I try to make a play on the name in some way. So you can kinda see where this name was coming from. Anyway...I did my usual modifications to change them from mittens to fingerless mitts. If I make them again I will probably not do the increases in the palm area as they are a bit looser than I like. The rolled hem at the wrist is a different twist on the usual ribbing and I like that bit of difference.

This will be my last pair of mitts for NaKniMitMo. I was able to crank out 4 pair.

Gracious Me...They're Finished

The Gracious Me mitts are finally finished. It seemed to take forever. I knew we would receive a new "clue" each week, but I didn't realize how it would draggg this thing out. I first blogged about them when I wrote about NaKniMitMo. I like the mitts and did a few modifications to suit me needs. I can see me making these again.

Val Be Mine

I finished my second pair of fingerless mitts. The pattern is called "Valentine Mitts" and I really like this pattern. The cables run all the way around and it is the same cable going one way on the left mitt and the mirror image on the right one.
Meanwhile, I have a sick baby at home with the flu. Looks like more knittin' in my forecast as we hunker in.

Riding the Zephyr

I came across this pattern called, "Zephyr Fingerless Mitts. I love how there is a little bit of cable and I thought it would look good in one of my stripey yarns. The word “Zephyr” has two meanings if you have been in the New Orleans area for a while. A long time ago, there used to be an amusement park called Pontchartrain Beach next to the lake. The roller coaster was this wild wooden coaster called “The Zephyr”. It was so much fun. Secondly, the "New Orleans Zephyr"s is the name of the minor league team here (probably named after the roller coaster). So these mitts became "Riding the Zephyr". I might need to keep these for myself...

NaKniMitMo

I know there are other "months" out there where people participate in doing something during that month. November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where people get their thoughts together and begin writing a novel. Cara participated this year with several of her friends. It was so fun to hear how excited she was to sit down at the computer and write a story. As I was piddling around reading the message boards on Ravelry, I found out that this month is NaKniMitMo or National Knitting Mittens Month. How could I have not known this? Well, you know me. If knittin' is involved, I am interested. I am participating in a fingerless mitts mystery KAL (knit a long) this month, so I can tag those as NaKniMitMo too. I started another pair of fingerless mitts last night. It is a new pattern I have not tried yet and I like how they are coming out so far. So far, I am liking NaKniMitMo a lot!

Edited to add on 1-27-11- I am also participating in 11 fingerless mitts in 2011. Woo Hoo!

Fingerless Again

Yeah well, I am still on the kick. I just like these so much. I decided to make a pair for my wonderful friend Cindy. Cindy brought us a couple of meal while I was going through chemo and since I found out the cancer, she would call and check on me and usually pull me out of some mental funk I was in. Whatever she did, it was just what I needed at the time. She even brought me a wonderful gift for my birthday. I know I have not told her how much I appreciate all she has done. I knit these mitt for her and I know she will read this post and it will spoil the surprise. Oh well...surprise Cindy. These are for you!

Owlings

With all of the fingerless mitts knitting going on, I knew I had to find a pair for Robyn. She loves owls and this pattern "Owlings" would fit her perfectly. I fiddled with the pattern a little in order to make a thumb gusset, but otherwise I knit it straight to the pattern. I like how it has the 4x1 ribbing throughout the mitt. She will love these.

Edited to add later: She lost one of these these the day after Christmas. Good thing I still had some yarn left :) The picture was actually taken with the replacement mitt since I didn't take a picture of the first set.

More Mitts without Fingers

I am still on my fingerless mitts craze. I am making several pair for Christmas gifts and I have to say I like making them. You probably picked up on that...

More Fingerless Mitts

I found a cable pattern I wanted to try and lo and behold, they are on a pair of fingerless mitts. I haven't gotten out of my need to make these things yet. I made a mistake in reading the pattern (really it was that I didn't read the pattern and started knitting what I thought I should do), but they came out alright. Have you picked up that I like making fingerless mitts yet?

Look Mom! I Can Knit Cables.

I present my final pair of mitts to be donated to the GSD rescue. I have been wanting to try cables and this was the project. It was so easy! It looks hard and complicated, but it isn't. Thanks to YouTube, I found a great video and was on my way.

More Mitts of the Fingerless Variety

I am still knitting fingerless mitts. They are so fun. These will go along with the other pair for the GSD rescue.

Fingerless Mitts

I have been on a fingerless mitts craze. I don't know why I like them so. I have never made a pair for myself, but they look so comfy. I was playing around with a pattern I found on Ravelry and did a few modifications of my own. I plan to send several sets of fingerless mitts to Cathy so the Austin German Shepherd Rescue can sell them and raise a little money. This will be one of the pairs.

The Fine Art of Compromise

Cara wants a corset. Now every preteen girl needs a corset, right? No. I am not sure where the corset thing comes from, but I tried to think of something that could fill the corset square so to speak. I came up with the idea of wrist warmers that lace like a corset. She was thrilled with the idea. She picked the colors and decided on the length (somewhat). They were easy to make and it made her happy. That's what counts anyway.