Druid Mittens

It's been a long time coming, but I finally finished my Druid Mittens! They've been on my needles since January. But I've been working on them longer than that as I actually had found the yarn for the mittens back in 2010. 

When I visited New Zealand last, I bought 2 balls of Zealana Kia Ora Kauri Fingering. The fiber content is 60% NZ Merino, 30% Possum, and 10% Silk. That great halo in the yarn comes from the possum. The thumbs are the prettiest I've ever seen on a mitten. I didn't even realize it until I had knit an entire mitten.

I modified the fit pretty heavily. I like my cuffs more snug. I also had some trouble getting the right gauge despite using size 0/ 2.0mm needles, so I subtracted some stitches out of the pattern and added some length. The details are on my ravelry project page. 

If I were to make these again, I wouldn't have gotten rid of the slip stitches on the side of the mittens. I didn't realize until the first mitten was done what the slip stitches added to the design.

Genius, Right?

Does anyone else do many, many things and then feel like they have done absolutely nothing. I seem to be in a constant time warp where I may have done an impossible number of things, but feel like I did them all last week. Things I've done since Saturday: A two day illustration project, massive coordination for the music video, picked up yarn for a prototype, drawn some comics, fixed the armpits of a sweater. 

Speaking of sweater armpits, I have decided to do my Rocky Coast Cardi's arms at the same time. The cables change around a bit as the arm decreases, so it is a little easier to remember what I've done if they are done at the same time. I've also come up with a great system to figure out where I am in the arm. The cables are an 8 row repeat, so I'm using the right number on the counter to mark where in the cable repeats I am. I'm using the left number to let me know how many total repeats there are. So I haven't done 32 rows. I'm on the 2nd row of the cable repeat and I've done 3 total repeats of the cable. Genius, right?

I've also continued working on the Druid mittens. I did come to the conclusion that my original plan of shrinking down the mitten wasn't going to work. At least not to the degree of shrinking that would be needed. I mean, look at that. I could nearly get both my hands into one cuff.

I've gone ahead and taken 18 stitches out of the pattern, which results in the cuff on the right. Much, much better. It may need to be felted a little bit, but not very much. Of course all this extra work to make the pattern fit me has sucked some of the fun out of the knitting. I'm going to look on the bright side though, and note that I have learned to make bobbles while making these mittens, and I think I like it. The bobbles do seem to like to flip to the wrong side of my work, and I'm not sure why, but I've decided not to worry about it too much just yet.

I Got Thanked For Using Yarn

The other day I was looking through the various comments left on this blog. (Thanks for leaving them everyone. It makes me feel super special!) I noticed this one left on my post about the Fireside Sweater.

I got thanked for using yarn! That's like being thanked for breathing.

You're welcome. I love Zealana yarns. (I have some more stashed away for other lovely projects) I think it is important to support New Zealand yarns, especially those with possum content. I'm part Kiwi after all. If you don't know why possum yarn is important, check out kiwipurler's post on the matter.

On a different note, has anyone ever submitted a proposal to a publication or yarn company? I've heard that you can get "pattern support" aka, yarn.

Don't Sweat The Sweater

How long does it take to block a sweater in the Bay Area during the month of June? An hour? Two? Not even close. It took THREE DAYS for this to dry because some how I managed to choose the only weekend in June that it has EVER stormed to block the sweater. In my entire memory, I don't remember it ever raining in June around here. Ever. After the storm we had a day of hot, sticky, mugginess. Another thing that doesn't happen here. Not until I tried to block my sweater. My very first sweater. Go figure. Maybe it'll rain again when I finish the sleeves.