Prototype 1

Using my Knittax and seaming the thing, because I detest knitting in the round, and it takes forever. Prototyping using the machine was easy, took only two evenings, and I can knit a second one now, with improvements.

I even swatched! Wow.

Prototype 1 was fine, but …

The trouble with the first prototype was adding the fluffy mohair part to the hand part. I had knitted two separate parts, intending to 3-needle-bind-off them together (using a crochet hook). While that worked, it was a pain in the ass, didn’t look flawless, and, most importantly, the seam was really annoying me when using the mouse.

Lessons Learned

• knit only ONE prototype, regardless how convinced you are that “the design will turn out GREAT and you will actually make a pair with no alterations at all”
• adding 2 stitches for seaming is NOT for sissies but common sense
• calculating how to evenly decrease from 64 stitches to 54 is arithmetically too challenging for me, and I best use visualization in the form of a checkered paper AND THERE IS NO SHAME IN THAT

Prototype 2

So Prototype 2 was knitted in one piece. This time top-down, so the cuff can be knitted onto the live stitches as they come off the machine.

Measurements from Prototype 1 were fine, so knitting another mitt “body” was easy. Then, seaming. Not my strongest suit. Lastly, knitting the thumb… I picked up stitches all around the gap I had left open and knitted short rows until I was happy with the thumb space (ca. 2/3 of the picked-up stitches), then knit in the round and decreased on the top of the thumb using a centered double decrease.

The thumb form is perfect! Especially when the hand rests on top of the mouse. The fluffy part is a bit too long, but not so much that it really bothers me.

So yes, I am totally enthusiastic about my M.O.M. and while I would like to have another one, I’m too impatient to knit a third and perfect one. It’s good enough, and “done” ist better than “perfect”, and it does its job perfectly and looks nice while doing so.

Needless to say that yesterday somebody fixed the central heating system and I’m not freezing at the computer anymore. Well! At least I have my M.O.M. now, and I’m wearing it as I type this.

About the yarns

Baby Alpaca Silk is awesome on the skin. Very warm and soft.
It’s very easy to machine-knit.
It’s frustrating to hand-knit because of splitting all the time.
It’s horrible to crochet because of that, too.

Super Kid Mohair from Rödel is far better than I thought. It is soft, warm, it knits phantastically on the machine (being far more durable than expected, it doesn’t break at all) and results in a very light and pleasant fabric. I’m already thinking of other stuff I can make from it. Really a fan now.

On the need of special computer mitts

So why don’t I use an existing fingerless mitt pattern? Because they don’t work well on a mouse. The fingers spread out and normal fingerless mitts somehow restrict your fingers in that position. This is why my design has a broad flare and a light and fluffy fabric.