Stripey mitts - part 2

For such a simple project, these stripey mitts have taken quite a while and I'm still not quite finished them! It all started after I had crocheted both squares ready to sew the seams. I was on a roll and feeling all was nice and stripey with the world until I started to sew the seam....... ARRGH!! Very ugly seam alert!!!

Because it's so rainbow in colours, there was no real way to hide the stitches - quite an ugly join, I must say. I tried a different colour above the pink edging for the thumb - in pink thread - and it looked better, but still not brilliant. Not good. No, not good AT ALL!

Pink thread joining - better colour but still really visible.....

At this point, there was a lot of unhappy mumblings and grumblings, a lot of trying different stitching methods to get more invisible stitches, and then after still feeling unhappy with my once happy mitts, a lot of ripping back - as in both squares right back to the beginning.

I know, I know! I'm a perfectionist! I could have had an okay pair and started a second better pair, but I couldn't just leave these mitts so poorly finished. But I did have a plan:-) Stripey mitts - round 2!

And in the round these literally are! And what a difference:-))) Happy again! When I first saw these mitts, I thought these would be best made in the round to avoid ugly seams but I kept getting the first row all twisted - tired, I suppose - so I gave up and just went with the happy crochet flow that was the flat stripey square. I really should have presevered as this time round, it worked perfectly - go figure;) The seam is a little jogged but a lot more asthetically pleasing than the ugly stitched version. I can live with that! 

I also changed the colour of the thumb edging from pink to yellow and took one row of orange out as the mitt was a little over long and the orange was a bit over heavy at that point. Of course now I have, I would prefer it back in:-) BUT, the perfectionist part of me can live with that! I think it could also do with some shaping - a few decreases for the wrist, then back out again would do the trick - but maybe I'd best save all these changes for the next pair!!

First though, I have the second mitt to fix......

Stripey crocheted mitts

I've been meaning to get around to starting my hexagon blanket for the last few weeks now and the balls of yarn are just sitting there, patiently asking to be used..... but I want to have a nice block of quiet time to spend crocheting away on the hexagons without any interruption - which just hasn't happened yet. (quiet rant about wet floors, insurance claims and five days clearing the whole downstairs of furniture....yada, yada....rant over:-)

So, to get my quick fix of bright colours and crochet, I decided to rustle me up a pair of stripey mitts, inspired by Attic24 and Henhouse. Oh, the pleasure of crochet! I forget how quickly it grows compared to knit and how theraputic it feels just to be crocheting away happily in the corner, with nothing more pressing than choosing the next colour in my bright rainbow.

See how it grows in just in one evening? To be fair, it's not a massive square:-) only 34 chains wide and crocheted using a treble stitch (or double stitch - US). But its good to feel like you are getting somewhere quickly!

I made a little scalloped edging on both ends, just cause it looks nice:-) Now, all I have to do is make another one the same and sew it up  - leaving a space for the thumbs. I'm so glad I learned how to crochet in the ends as you go as it means there is no daunting sewing task at the end. Bonus!

I may decorate mine with buttons like Henhouse's version but I'll wait and see how it looks when finished - but I think I might:-)) Any excuse to embellish!

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!

Winners!

Well, today is the day to announce the final winners of the week long giveaway. So straight to it, again all names have been selected totally at random:

The winner of the Peacock yarn is............. Ertanthes

The winner of the Butterscotch yarn is............ Rachel G.

The winner of After the storm is ............... Jersey

The winner of Calm Horizons is ............... Carla

and the winner of commissioning your own yarn is............... EJ!

Congratulations all! If you could get in touch with me at labellehelene@btinternet.com and give me your posting details, I will endeavour to get these to you as soon as possible. EJ, you will need to get your thinking cap on now and think up your own special yarn, now it's for real:-)

Thank you so much everyone for taking part in the giveaways this last month. Its been really fun dyeing the yarns for you all and hearing all the lovely suggestions that you could knit with them. I'm sorry not everyone was able to win something but do stick around as I think I will be holding more giveaways in the near future.

On the knitting front, I actually made some progress and should have some pics to show you tomorrow of my bright green Veyla mitts - design just out by Ysolda. Still waiting on some buttons so I can't really call them finished yet. But loving the pattern so much I've started another pair;-) See you tomorrow....

Evangeline

I had actually made a start on these lovely mitts before I got the sock bug. You can knit them wrist or elbow length so naturally I'm going for elbow. I like how you get more pattern to appreciate and it will keep my whole arm warm when I'm typing:-) My mouse hand/arm always gets particularly cold after a while so this is an elegant solution, don't you think?

The yarn I'm using is one of the hand dyed balls of merino I've been saving specifically for this pattern. I thought it would knit up in a more subtle variegation but it looks like it's settling into faint stripes - not quite what I intended or really wanted. But I will knit a bit more and see if I like it enough to keep. It may look better in a SOCK!! Being 100% merino, how long would these realistically last as socks? I'd have to hand wash them every time or they'd shrink, wouldn't they? Best hope the dye is well and truly fixed or I'll end up with purple feet:-) Maybe I should stick to mitts before I borrow any trouble....

Anyway, I want to finish the second sock first before I carry on with the mitts so I have plenty time to decide. I'll still have loads of time to wear them the way the weather is going this winter - brrrr. I may have to adapt a pair of these with fingers!

Mittens update

I know, I know, I said I was giving the knitting a rest. And I have, sort of. I'm researching ideas for collage/paintings at the moment during the day and saving the knitting until the evenings so I can watch tv at the same time! Once I'd made up my mind to do this, I thought I'd better finish off those projects lying around and before you know it, the mittens are now mitts! They are still nice but I did like them as mittens better. But since I made the mistake of not reading how much yarn I needed, it's the best solution without scrapping the whole thing.

They are very thick and cosy but too big for my hands. Definitely a mans mitt pattern this one. But I did find another pattern for mittens that is perfect for those of you with smaller hands:) More on that when I take some photos.......

I've also been finishing off a few hats as well as starting on the fuzzy mittens and there is another crochet winter blanket project started too. It's modular hexagons so I can do the individual pieces and put it all together at the end. So far I've done 2. They are about 10cm wide though, not tootie ones and it took me a whole episode of Sharpe to crochet one and become familiar with the pattern.

Talking about programmes that become memories in your knitting - more mitts to go while watching the Borg tonight. 'We are Borg. You will be assimilated'. Methinks it's a bit too late for that. The knitting has taken over........

Ah, there goes Voyager and Captain Janeway getting some revenge on the borg cube. Comfort tv....

Finally...... Dashing!

Two blogless days later and I've finally finished the Dashing fingerless mitts. Okay, it hasn't quite been every second of the last few days but I have clocked up a good few hours of film watching! Funny how projects remind you of what you watched when you were knitting. So for Dashing, I've watched all of the extended DVD's of Lord of the Rings and Persuasion 2007 tv version. (I think it was ITV - in the UK).

The yarn is one of the hand dyed balls from a few months back and I think it works really well with both the solid and the cable areas. The blend of colours is just yummy. When my partner and I decided to dye some yarns mine ended up being tones of purply/pinks and jade greens. His were all lovely subtle browns, honeys and aquas. So I think it's only fitting to make a pair of mitts for him out of his sumptious yarns - which he generously gave to me. Strange he doesn't think he has a gift for colour and dyeing yarns. He won't believe me when I go 'WOW' and thinks I'm exaggerating his abilities ........ sigh.

A little close-up of the cable detail and the subtle colour variations of the yarn. The cable is a simple directional twist but you must remember to do the opposite for the other hand! C4B for the left and C4F for the right. The pattern is pretty clear but I did nearly forget and also had to remember to carefully place the thumbs and not end up with two left hands!! The pattern is free at Knitty.com and is a good weekend knit.

The finished hand warmer with the obligatory mug of tea - or coffee. I like these mitts as they are longer on the arm and very snug. Perfect for that cold computer hand syndrome:) Although you can't see the second mitt clearly, please note it is there! I actually did it! I didn't pause, get distracted and forget to 'get round to' the second one - second glove, sock, sleeve syndrome. I am sooo bad at that and since the first fingerless glove I knitted last year is still missing its partner, it was kind of important that I didn't fall by the wayside this time!
(I will knit it, honest! Now I've rediscovered the yarn.......)