RSS
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
FO Feature: Grove
I need more winter gear like I need a hole in my head. These mittens, though, they have been calling to me since Jared Flood released the pattern last summer in his book Made in Brooklyn. I waited until it was available as an individual PDF, because nothing else from the book was calling to me as strongly as these mittens. I got my yarn, as usual, from Knit Picks. I went with orange, partially because I liked the color of the ones in the picture and partially because I don’t have anything that’s orange and I thought it would be nice for the dreary, dull winter.
They’re not very hard to knit, honestly, once you figure out what the pattern is doing. I started with size 6 needles, but after doing part of the pattern, I decided they would be too small, so I ripped it out and started over in size 7. I’m glad I did, too, because they fit perfectly after blocking, and they certainly would have been too small if I hadn’t gone up a needle size. The cuffs are pretty easy. They are the only part of the mittens that require cabling. I used a cable needle because the yarn is slippery and with my nickle-plated needles, I didn’t want to fight with cabling without a cable needle, even if I’m capable of doing it. After the cuffs, the charts start, and they’re pretty easy to read once printed out from the PDF. I understand that they were very small in the book, but they take up a whole page on the PDF so I had no problems reading the different symbols.
Most of the pattern is pretty clear, but I did have some problems with the chart. One of the symbols is defined simply as “purl” when it should be decreasing two stitches. It appears twice on each mitten and six times on each thumb, so I really needed to figure out what it was. After searching the internet and Ravelry, I determined that I am apparently the only person who had this problem with the pattern. I looked up common chart symbols for knitting and ended up looking up a way to do a two-stitch no-lean purlwise decrease. The left-hand chart was fine – I had no problems with it. There were some mistakes on the right-hand chart where there were some missing symbols, but by that time I was well-versed in what the pattern should be doing so it didn’t mess me up at all.
Can I just say how much I love these mittens? They’re bold and beautiful. They’re also very soft, owing to the superwash wool, and they fit me very well. I can’t wait to wear them when the weather backs down from “amazingly hot and muggy”. (Okay, so it’s only kinda hot, but it’s also only June. It will be amazingly hot soon enough.)
I did goof with this, though. I ordered 3 skeins of Swish worsted based on the yardage mentioned for the mittens, expecting to use maybe half of the third skein, if that. It’s always better to have a little more than necessary, right? Well, I think I went far beyond “a little.” I used less than 1 skein for the first mitten, and I got at least 1/3 of the way through the second mitten before I needed a second skein. I used 28 grams of the 50 gram ball, so I have 72 grams of yarn left – 171 yards! That’s almost enough to make an entire second pair of mittens! I’ve decided I’m going to make a hat to go with the mittens. I need another hat just as much as I need another pair of mittens, but how can I resist when I’ve found a wonderful pattern to showcase this beautiful yarn color?
Share
