Yarn Traveler

Looking at my Ravelry projects, I noticed a trend. It would appear that aside from the occasional scarf, everything I’ve knitted for the last two years has been a hat or most often socks. I blame it on my crazy work schedule; the only time I was able to squeeze in a few stitches was while commuting to and from work on the bus. That alone limited the complexity and size of my projects.

So, while my latest project is similar in size, it definitely represents a departure from the usual ribbed or plain stockinet projects. I tried a little lace!

I slightly modified the Cranford Mitts pattern, substituting K1, P1 ribbing for the called-for garter stitch at the cuffs. I also added a few pattern repeats to lengthen the arms.

I’m embarrassed to say that I started this one little mitt about 5 times. It wasn’t the pattern, it was all me. I seemed to have lost all ability to count to 10. I restarted the first 8 rows several times because I just kept coming out with the wrong stitch count. It may have been due to the fact that I was listening to an audiobook (The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman) and wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been to the knitting.

Then, once I finally got my act together and made it to the thumb gusset without screwing up irrevocably, my lack of swatching came back to bite me in the ass (doesn’t it always?). I knew as I was knitting that it was going to be too small, that little voice in the back of my head told me so, but I had started over so many times I didn’t want to think about starting again. I tried it on to check the thumb placement, and sure enough, it was too tight.

So stuck at home yesterday due to broken water main near the flat, and therefore no water in the flat, I buckled down and produced one single little mitt. I’m exceptionally pleased. Almost as pleased as when the water came back today. I predict more lacy mitts in the near future.

Filed under: Finished Items on January 6th, 2009