The veyla mitts are finished!

I finally made a decision on the buttons for the Veyla mitts and plumbed for the small victorian style buttons. They fit the buttonholes very well and suit the delicate lacy style overall I think. Although it took me a while to decide which ones to eventually go for, it took me even longer to get around to sewing them on! - as I said its been a lethargic week...:-) So as promised, lots of photos of the finished Velyas for you.

So a pic of one mitt off, then one mitt on. I love how Ysolda really thought about how the buttons would sit on that curve - very nice design detail.

And just for you, a tricky picture taken from my viewpoint by John - he had to stick the camera pretty much in front of my face for this one:-)) Thank you for being patient enough to take these pics!!

I think I'll get more chances to wear these now its getting a bit colder. I really noticed the difference in the air today. Time to pack away all the summer clothes, I think and bring out all the layers. I've been thinking more about crochet and stripes and I think there will be more stripes in my future! Stripey scarves, gloves, mitts - and socks of course! Maybe its my antidote to winter coming. Colour, colour, colour!!!!

Oh, I've got to look a bit more natural in these photos:-))

Buttons for Veyla

At last all my buttons have arrived for my green Veyla mitts. It's quite hard to gauge online whether the greens will accentuate or get lost in the lace detail and some that seemed small enough on paper, now seem a bit too big for the cuff. I got a mixture of plain and funky - well, you can never have enough buttons;-)

These first ones fit the buttonholes well and are solid but relective in colour. I quite like these as they are small enough but the shine keeps them interesting. Subtle for me, I know but with these the lace is more dominant.

Next up, not so subtle nice, bright daisy buttons. They are certainly funky and not too big for the cuff but they don't lend themselves to an elegant feel:-) These would have to be decorative only as they get caught in the buttonhole but I think I can slide these mitts on without undoing the buttons anyway.

Next up, these lovely apple buttons. These are super funky but a bit bigger. I can only realistically get three on without squashing them up close together. Again, these would have to be decorative rather than functional. I'm thinking the paler green colour isn't working and the lace is obscuring the apple shape too much to make everything gel.

Ah, the green flower/star shapes. These are a no-no straight away. Gorgeous buttons though but the green flower is totally lost and the sparkly centres look like little dots. Waste of a lovely button on these. I have enough to use them on a larger project so no worries.

Hmm. I like these buttons a lot but they are a bit bigger again - maybe verging on too big? Enough pattern without killing the lace and the right tone of green though. Running near the top of my list these.

These lovely buttons arrived late and are a lot bigger than I thought but lovely. Looking at them on the glove, they are maybe a bit too busy or weighty/heavy looking for the cuff. But they are so nice... Maybe I should keep them for a funky cardigan, or something instead.

The last idea I tried was to move away from green altogether and try white. Although they are more pearlescent than in the picture, the white is just too bright and has too much tonal contrast to work, I think.

So, that leaves the little green buttons in picture 1, the bigger green buttons I liked, the japanese ones and the green and white daisies..... What do you think?

Green Veyla Mitts

Over the weekend, I've been knitting up these fingerless mitts by Ysolda. The pattern just came out friday and I've been just dying to try this pattern since we got a sneek peek of the mitts on her blog. The mitts are knitted up with fingering weight yarn and only use up to 185yrd/170m of yarn. This worked out overall about 28gms of yarn!! Amazing! These green mitts are knitted up using a 50gm tester of semi-solid green supersock yarn. I think I dyed it at the same time as the green stripey for week 2's giveaway.

The pattern is a very cleverly constructed glove with a lace cuff knitted flat then cast off. You then pick up the stitches for the 'hand' of the glove from the side of the lace. Very neat and elegant. You can see in the cuff close-up the lace is now sideways. There are meant to be buttons for fastening and added detailing as you can see in the top picture but I didn't have any that worked very well, so I had to hunt on Etsy and Ebay to find some I was happy with. Problem is I'm still waiting on them to arrive. I really thought today was the day but, no. Maybe tomorrow.

To knit both mitts only took me a weekend, and not solid knitting at that. Visited a car boot with high hopes of quilting material or books but only found a few little things this time - a long bright burnt orange skirt and some nesting dolls, which are lovely:-) I'll try and take some photos of the dolls to show you when it brightens up a bit. But we have been promised 4 days of sun!!! 4!! No cloud, dull days or rain - apparently! So if that holds true I can get on and get my shed transformed into my dyeing workshop.

This has been an ongoing saga this summer:-) and I have some progress photos for you but as we haven't made that much progress, don't expect the Ritz or anything quite yet! I'm just really pleased we have a door and windows for now! It still needs electrics, dried and painted inside and out but this will just have to be as and when I can afford each step. But it will be weather tight and the rain will be back soon, I'm sure!

So, there may not be quite as much knitting going on with all the DIY needed this week but I am hoping to squeeze in some dyeing experimentation for new colourways so I'll keep you posted on those and you can tell me what you think:-) HA, see? I've now committed to a deadline:) Best way to keep my ass in gear!! See you soon!