Tuesday, October 11, 2005

mitten 2 is still wee

Knitting has been slow going. I've finished the cuff and 7 rows of the second mitten, but it's been a bit of a struggle. I've stopped knitting in ends, and have started spit splicing. The weaving in was just too bulky - bulkier in my opinion than the method I used to weave in after the fact, as everything was getting woven in in the same row, and every time you change colors, there are 2 ends to weave in at the same time. So I think I'm going to stick with spit splicing, and heck, even do it for the more abrupt color transitions. Maybe I'll leave loose ends when I'm at the smaller circumferences in the thumb and end of the hand, when it would be a pain to do such frequent splicing.

I'm also having some tension issues I didn't have on the first mitten. I think a lot of it was my tension going all wonky from trying to pay attention to knitting in ends at the same time as doing fair isle. Also, I'm trying out keeping the DPNs in a more traditional configuration, with the knitting not inside out. This means more potential for tension problems at the needle transitions. It may mean that this mitten is not as nice as the first one, but I want to figure out how to do fair isle on DPNs this way, because I strongly prefer it to knitting on the far side of the DPNs, with the knitting inside out. If I can get decent on it with this sacrificial mitten, I'll be much happier when it comes time to do sleeves in fair isle.



Also, here is a photo of my pretty new beaded stitchmarkers. Using them feels like wearing a pair of pretty earrings or something. I'm not used to wearing or using fancy stuff, and it makes everything feel special. Much nicer than ugly, pain in the butt plastic stitch markers.



That's it, folks. I'm going to concentrate on finishing up the mittens this week, if I can. I'm still brainstorming ways to block them, so if you have any bright ideas, please do share.

I'm getting a bit depressed about upcoming stuff. Samus is definitely going to be one of those projects I'm knitting more for the finished product than for the process. The cables will be fun, but it's mostly plain stockinette, and I'll want to poke my eyes out from the boredom, I'm sure. I'm thinking of casting on for a lace or cabled sock when I start Samus, which may be next week, so I have something more exciting to work on when the cables are done.

2 Comments:

Blogger Sayward said...

That's a beautiful mitten pattern you're using.

10/11/2005 10:19 AM  
Blogger Lou Schiela said...

Oh. My. Gosh. Those mittens are beautiful. I quickly ran down your blog to find out some of the specifics of your mitten but was unsuccessful. What pattern are you using and how did you come up with the colors. They are gorgeous! They are definitely worth the effort. Masterpiece!

10/12/2005 1:15 AM  

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