Friday, December 21, 2007

Free at last!


The last pair of mittens for someone else! Done! They went really fast plus, I could just feel the end and I love rushing to a finish line. These are for a friend of my MIL. My MIL keeps showing off her mitts to everyone she knows and now she's been requesting them for a couple of them. One here and there I don't mind, but it was becoming a bit too much. Hub put a stop to the requests. Good man.

Pattern: My Own
Yarn: Karabella Aurora 8, Black

I bought this yarn to try because CrazyDaisy was talking about how much she loved it recently. I'd never even seen it in person. The really funny thing is we go to the same LYS. But I never realized they had it! Sadly, they are going out of business. As the shelves have cleared in the past month I keep finding yarns I didn't realized were tucked away in there. I feel like a dork. But a happy one, because I get to try them now when they're being cleared out at 30% off. ha ha. I also picked up a couple of balls to make Hub a Koolhaas hat. Being the dork that he is, Hub thought it would be "cool" if I made a second one for his best friend back in Seattle... a designer who would love something Seattle-ish and designer-y. And they'd "match". Not sure how "cool" that would be, but I think it's pretty funny. We shall see!

I started trying to work on the mitt's for myself. I have some from last year, but I got a new coat and between the coat and last years mitt's, I look a bit like a clown. The coat is a plumish herringbone pattern and the mitt's... well you can see. I could not resist some Melange. Once I saw it in person... and FELT it. Oh my. I had thought I would make the Huckleberry Ascot from Holiday IK. But I need mitt's more than a scarf. A set would be nice... so I bought 3 skeins. Such a treat! However, I am realizing, this yarn is going to be tough to make mitt's out of. It's so drapey. No bounce at all. I tried a garter stitch mitt. Which you saw here... It was ok. The garter stitchiness was great. The fit of the thumb, not so much. It felt annoying so I ripped it out. If I could figure out how to put an actual thumb on it, I'd probably like that. But I haven't figured that out.

So... I cast on Fetching last night. I thought the cables would help hold it together. I'm not sure it's going to work. Even down on size 4's I think it's too big. It's hard to describe the qualities of the yarn. But if you've worked with something similar you know what I mean. I think it would be ok if I maybe took it down to 3's. But... now I'm thinking I'm going to use way more than one skein of the yarn and not have enough for my scarf. I knew when I bought it I would probably need 4, but was trying not to spend that money. Not sure what to do! Maybe I should use something else for the mitt's??? I can't make a decision to save my life.

So... any suggestions out there? Ideas?


I suppose this gives me time to get my house clean and presents wrapped and cookies baked... you know... things I SHOULD be doing instead of knitting! ha!

2 comments:

Sarah said...

It sounds like a divine yarn and I'm sorry to hear that it's not working out. I don't have much in the way of suggestions other that something ribbed and/or with cabling or some kind of twisted stitches to pull the fabric in.

I'm sorry I'm not much help -- usually when I get a yarn that doesn't work for a pattern, I just give up and go with another yarn!

Licia said...

Emergency needles for less... Amazon has Oriental Touch needles (they are great for the price). Less than $20 for full sets of sizes 0 to 13!

Hope you don't mind a random poster from who knows where. (Edmonds WA).

-LiciaPots