3/22/11 - UPDATE - I am absolutely devastated - my mittens are missing! They’ve been gone for over a week now and I can’t for the life of me find them. I can remember the last time I wore them and could swear that they could only be in one of two places, but I can’t find them anywhere. I’ve asked, I’ve searched, I’ve torn apart my house and car…I’m thinking they might be really and truly lost. I am not a person who loses things and yet, this year, I have somehow lost these mittens, my first ever hat, and a glove. I have no clue how all of this happened but I am not at all happy. If they continue to be missing, I’ll have to make myself another pair because I loved loved LOVED these perfect mittens.

2/26/10 - I have been DYING to cast these on and tonight is the night. Sure, I’ve got socks that I need to start over for Cryssy and yes, I need to rip back to the first buttonhole on my Little Birds to shift it over and then redo the whole darn ribbing band and, of course, I need to make Maria’s scarf…but dammit all, I have held off long enough! I try to have only one of each project going at a time and I needed to make MiKnits Kissing Koi mittens before I would allow myself to start these. I’ve had the yarn wound forever and just waiting for me to cast it on and now, it’s time! I am beyond excited. MiKnit’s mittens are soaking right now and hopefully they’ll be dry enough for me to take to knitting group tomorrow. I mean, I know they won’t be completely dry but as long as they’re not dripping, I’m going to take them and show them off.

I’m excited to start on my second pair of mittens in part because I have an image in my head that I’d like to translate into a pattern for a pair of mittens. I’ve been sketching it out a little but I want to get some good mitten techniques under my belt before I really start on them. I’d hate to only have done one pair and a few months from now find a different cuff or thumb technique or something that I’d rather use. I’m trying the Twisted German Cast On for the first time ever, but I’m really not certain I’m doing it right…I’m also not certain I see the point. I’ll need to ask the ladies at knitting group, since they all seem to love this cast on.

Yarn Dominance

2/28/10 - Reasons why I love Linda:

• Yesterday at knitting group, I showed her how my little cuff was coming. The further I went, the more I began to have misgivings - it was looking really small. Really tight. Really not right. In the midst of all this, I mentioned how much I hated having to do the k,p,k in Continental with my bad hand. Linda showed me in two seconds just how easy it actually is to do it. After 2 rounds doing it the way she had shown me, I realized that her way made everything much looser. I decided to rip out and do it all her way.
• When I ripped back, I decided to have her show me how to do the Twisted German Cast On since I had my doubts and misgivings that I had done it correctly the night before. After half a second it became 100% clear that I’d done it ALL wrong. I can now see why so many people like this cast-on.
• When I started doing it on my own, I somehow tightened up a LOT. Linda gave me a few tips for how to do it correctly without having that happen.
• Within 5 rounds, I could see how much better this was going to fit and how much more relaxed everything was.

That being said, tonight I was just about at the 2.5 mark for the cuff. I became curious and tried to slip my hand in. This was where I once again discovered a problem - it’s still too tight. When I saw how much looser the Twisted German made everything, I dropped down to 56 stitches for the cast on the way that Linda had. The thing is, I tighten up when I do colourwork. The cuff goes on, but it’s tricky to get it over my thumb area, and it’s just a little snug around the wrist. So (I can’t believe I’m going to say this), I’m going to rip out and start over AGAIN. This time, I’ll add on stitches so that I have the right amount. I think that will make everything work out fine. I’m tempted to go up a needle size but I really don’t see that being necessary if I just add on a few more stitches.

Jesus, who knew a cuff could be so friggin’ difficult???

3/1/10 - Dear mitten cuff,
I am not an inept knitter. I am, in face, quite skilled. I am not typically a tight knitter, although of course it stands to reason that knitting with two yarns makes me tighter than when I only have one. Nevertheless, I am a good knitter. It is not fair that you are still TOO DAMN SMALL and that I will now have to RIP BACK and use the full number of stitches and maybe even go up half a needle size. When I tried you on and you just BARELY fit but were really not stretchy and too tight…that wasn’t cool. It also wasn’t cool that you were somehow so damn tight that you gave me a burn on my hand from trying to slide you on.

Now, I know that some of this is the yarn’s fault - as much as I like the texture of Mal sock, it really has very little stretch or give, especially when it’s being stranded. Clearly I will have to keep this in mind for the rest of this project. But I just wanted to let you know that someday, mitten cuff, you shall be finished and fit correctly and I will be victorious.

Friggin’ mitten cuff.

3/17/10 - Okay, we’re starting over again. Over the weekend I had Linda show me how to do the Twisted German Cast On a few more times - now I know exactly what I’m doing. I cast on again tonight (instead of going to bed at a decent hour), this time with the 66 stitches the pattern calls for. I’m doing a P1, K2 and loving how it looks. I feel like I’m back on my feet with this one, although we’ll see for how long! I’m personally hating the cast-on edge a little bit, mostly because I just don’t like to see a loopy stretchy cast-on. But you know what? I’m leaving it just the way it is. No one will notice but me and at this point, I’ve lost the will to care!

1/11/10 - Finally, finally finished! It took absolutely forever and I definitely started over even more times than I indicated here. I kept abandoning this and walking off to other projects, mostly because it warmed up and I then I didn’t feel the need for mittens, then I was starting my own mitten pattern, and about a billion other things…but it’s finally done. I really started working hard on these right around Christmas. I’ve been a little stuck on the mitten pattern of my own since before then and thought that if I could really tackle this and figure out how mittens are put together, that would help me all the more. It truly did. I got up the cuff and abotu a third of the way into the actual pattern motif (after being fussy and ripping back to the cuff a few times to make some changes) only to discover that my yarn pairing was not good. I was using one skein of Mal sock in Persia and one in Abril, and the grey-ish bits of the Persia were really hiding the inherent beauty in the colourshifts of the Abril. So I ripped all the way back and used my skein of Impressionist Sky as the background instead. I still don’t think th epairing is 100% perfect - I would have liked the blue to be more close to turquoise - but I do think they’re lovely and that you can see the pattern motif much easier this way. They’re a little tiny. I think that for mittens, I really just need to start using a size 2 needles. I know all the patterns recommend size 0 or 1, and here I am already bumping up to a 1.5, but it’s still really not enough. I must just tighten up a lot on these tiny needles. I’m sure that it’ll loosen up once it hits the water and iwth a bit of wearing, but right now they’re a teeny bit snug.

It also wasn’t long enough for my hand. I should have gone with a size L, apparently, to add extra length but truly, I think if I had gone up a needle size it would have been fine. I lengthened the mittens by doing the decreases every other row, instead of every row, and just adding in some little stars and lines to keep the pretty pattern motif going. Once I hit 17 stitches, I did the last 3 decreases all in a row. I really was not happy with the way my Kitchner stitch turned out - the mitten ends looked kind of squared and stuck out on the edges - so I ripped back and did a 3-needle bind off instead. Much, much nicer. Here were my changes:

I decided to do a folded over cuff at the bottom. CO 66 stitches, knit 2 rounds, purl one round, knit 2 rounds, fold the cuff and knit the current round to the cast-on edge. It looks nice and neat that way.
Ribbing: K2 in CC, P1 in MC
After 20 rounds of ribbing, I decided to just knit 2 rows in the MC, I thought the purl round looked awkward and sloppy.