I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

I may have gone a little crazy with the mitten knitting.

Let me start out by saying I don’t particularly like to wear mittens. But they sure are fun and fast to knit . . . well, the first one anyway. My track record with mittens is less than stellar. In the past, I’ve never really been very interested in knitting the second mitten. In fact, I have no fewer than 5 single mittens languishing in my WIP pile.

Among them are some Turkish mittens from Magnificent Mittens:

Lopi Mittens from Folk Mittens (notice the glaring error):

And, Mittens From Halland, also from Folk Mittens.

But this December I’ve attacked mittens with a renewed vengence.

The first pair I finished were the Manly Mitts with the thumb from the Herringbone Mittens With Poms. Well, they’re not 100% finished since I haven’t blocked them yet, but the knitting part is finished:

The chart I used for the top decreases is in this post.

Emboldened by the simple fact that I actually knit two matching mittens, I immediately cast on a new pair.

These are Kelly’s Very Cabley Mittens.

I used the recommended yarn, Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted (in the Pistachio colorway), and followed the pattern almost exactly as written. The only change I made was to mark the thumb on the 6th rnd of the pattern repeat instead of the 2nd rnd. That necessitated placing the waste yarn in a slightly different spot. I worked the thumb round as: k1, k6 sts with the waste yarn, etc. (instead of k7, k6 with the waste yarn, etc., as set out in the original pattern).

And, look, I liked the Very Cabley Mittens so much that I made another pair!

For this pair, I worked the thumb on Rnd 2 but I worked one less repeat of the cable pattern on the cuff. And, obviously, I also have to put in the second thumb. But before I did that, I knit a pair of instant gratification mittens:

These are the Bulky Mittens from Knitting Pure and Simple.
I knit both of these in less than 2 hours from a single skein of Berroco Hip Hop that’s been languishing in my stash for years. I wore them on Thursday when I went to see Debbie Stoller.

and they kept my hands toasty warm even though it was cold as hell out.

And then I couldn’t stop myself from starting a pair of Sander’s Mittens from Folk Knitting In Estonia:

I’ll have more to say about these later this week. But first I have to clean up this mess o’ mittens.

In an attempt to satisfy Kim’s insatiable craving for WIP photos and details, I intend to bore you to death with the progress notes on my Manly Mitts. Unfortunately, they’re still a WIP since a secret project with a short deadline elbowed its way to the head of the knitting queue this weekend.

But, I’m getting there:

Laurie asked about the yarn. It’s Nature Spun Worsted in the colors Cross Country Green and Silver Sage. The Silver Sage has a slight blue tone but it contrasts nicely with the green.

I also got an email asking about the needles I’m using.
I knit the cuff and the main portion of the hand with a 12-inch, 3.5mm Addi Turbo. Because the circumference of the needle is so small, I’ve had to hold my hand in a slightly awkward position while I knit and my wrist starts to hurt after about 30 minutes. So I’ve been careful to put the mitten down once I begin to feel a bit of pain. I have to say, though, that knitting mittens on 12-inch circulars is the only way to go. The tension stays even and the mitten looks great even though it hasn’t yet been blocked.

Unfortunately, the 12-inch Addi can’t be used for the top decreases so I decided to Magic Loop that portion. I’ve just never felt the love for the Magic Loop and find it to be a really fussy method. I know some knitters love it, but I’m a die-hard dpn lover. But for stranded patterns the 12-inch circular beats the pants off double-points.

I knit stranded patterns by holding the main yarn in my right hand and the contrasting yarn in my left. So I pick and throw simultaneously, a technique demonstrated in this video (although I throw differently than the knitter in the video). With dpns, I have to drop both yarns every time I move from needle to needle. With the circular, I can just continue round and round without constantly readjusting the yarns. Sweet.

Oh, and speaking of the top of the mitten. Marie asked if I’d altered the top shaping. Yes, I did. Here’s my hand-drawn chart showing how I decreased. Only one half of the mitten is shown on the chart but the other half is identical.

When I finished the decreases shown on the chart, I had 16 stitches left. I worked a rnd of k2tog and then threaded the yarn tail through the remaining 8 stitches and pulled the hole closed. I like it better than the decreases in the original pattern. But it’s really just a matter of personal preference.

How’d I do, Kim?

Cheryl knows me too well. Notwithstanding the numerous calls for clemency in the comments, I lifted the stay of execution granted to the Manly Mitt and frogged the whole thing down to the cuff on Wednesday afternoon. Heartbreaking, but necessary and so freeing.

Like the mythical Phoenix, however, a new Manly Mitt has risen from the ashes tangled yarn.

This iteration uses the stranded stitch pattern from the Manly Mitts design coupled with the striped thumb and thumb gore from Elli’s Herringbone Mittens With Poms design.

Dang, you can sure get a lot of knitting done on a holiday from work. Makes me almost want to quit my day job.