Making progress

I love vacation if for no other reason than I am able to make some real progress with my knitting. As you can see I have gotten quite a bit accomplished even with time out to prepare a thanksgiving dinner for eight. It has been especially enjoyable as my knitting sister has been staying at my house for the holiday weekend.

As I did with my textured sweater vest, I am knitting both the front and the back simultaneously. For me this proves to be the best option as I would hate to become bored with the pattern and never finish the front of the sweater after I complete the back. What a waste of good yarn.

But knitting the two sides together adds a small problem, if I get interrupted for any reason when I am between the two sides, I sometimes turn the work too soon and have more rows completed on one side versus the other. I solved this problem by connecting the two sides with stitch markers. I then treat this as if it is one piece switching the yarn ball in the middle.

The pattern is fairly easy to do. I say only fairly easy as it is fairly easy to get the count off and put a purl where a knit should be. So I have tried to get in the habit of checking my work after I have completed every row. When I find that I have made a mistake in the pattern, I mark the stitch with a stitch marker and use a crochet hook to fix it when I come to that stitch on the next pass.

I like the Wool of the Andes Bulky that I am using. The stitch definition is pretty good, and the yarn is not so thick that the sweater will be too hot when worn indoors. I wish my camera was better so that I could show what the true color is. But I work with the tools I have.

My knitting sister has been working on a pair of socks. At the present time, she is using Cascade 220 in Lime Heather to knit a pair of socks from The Big Book of Socks by Kathleen Taylor. She is on her 4th pair of adult socks out of this book. She likes this book because most of the sock patterns use the same size needle, so she has not had to go out and purchase a bunch of Addi turbos in various sizes. (Being on a limited budget is really hard on a rabid knitter.) I spent some time sharing the Silver's Sock Class website with her last night as she is interested in trying toe up socks.

Well, I am itching to get back to knitting, so Happy Knitting!

Cabled Convertible Mitten

The cable begins

There is something about cables that just speaks to me. If you remember, my last socks were cabled, but that did not get the cabling out of my system. A friend asked me to make her a pair of convertible mittens a few weeks ago, and since it was finally time to start them, I thought about doing cables, but I couldn't find a pattern that I liked. I began looking at the convertible mitten patterns that were out there and it occurred to me that perhaps I could use any mitten pattern that I wanted and just use waste yarn to create the flap.

Fortunately for me, one of the knitting blogs that I follow, ChemKnits, put out a post on just the very idea that I had! In her video, she shows a regular mitten pattern on which she is using a waste yarn method to change to convertible. My plan is to take her idea one step further and add a convertible thumb for texting since I know my friend likes to text.

Here is one of the mittens in progress. I chose a plait instead of a two strand cable. I love the color of this Cascade 220 worsted weight -- it is called dark chocolate. Well, yeah, what else would you call it! The yarn has beautiful stitch definition with what is for me, the perfect amount of stretch in the fibers. It has a firm texture which holds up and does not leave spaces where the cables pull the stitches over.

I decided to knit the mitten from the fingertips to the cuff. Since I have done several socks lately, I realized the toe of a sock closely resembles the fingertip of a mitten. I haven't ever done a pair like that, but hey, why not. Of course, that would make it more difficult to work a mitten with a gusset thumb, so I will use the waste yarn again to work a peasant thumb.
I do have two lessons already learned. For the first, I forgot how a cable pulls the stitches in. That wouldn't be a problem normally because you wouldn't worry if the palm got pulled around a little, but the white waste yarn highlights the fact that the opening and the ribbing that will be knit along the edge will be visible from the back of the hand. So when I make another pair, I will make two more increases (four extra stitches) on the back/braid side of the mitten. This will give enough width across the back of the hand that the opening will not be pulled around.

The waste yarn

The second lesson learned is similar to the first. The mitten turned out pointier than than I care for because the cable is pulling it inward. I think that I would modify the figure 8 cast on and add four extra stitches at the tip so that the end is wider. This would also require fewer increase rows and that would give a rounder look to the top of the mitten.

Until next time, "Happy Knitting!"