Rainbow's end

Today I decided to do a small, fun, relaxing project, using techniques I'm already familiar with so there would be more making to be had. In complete contrast to the last few days of fine wire and jewellery, I opted for a bit of rainbows, sunshine and comfy knitting.

There's a pattern I've been saving on Ravelry, a lovely rainbow bag made with simple short row shaping that's been calling my name for ages, so today I decided that this was the day! Yarn - check, needles -check, pattern -  ah, you have to buy it, but it's not a lot. Do I want to buy a pattern when I could probably work it out? Now, after learning from the wire bracelet project that sometimes it's ok not to reinvent the wheel every day, I decided, yes, why not? Have a day off from the working out and just enjoy the knit. So I did. :)

A lovely rainbow of colours to work with, perfect. The rainbow bag dimensions were 30x45cm and I thought, that's a two day project for sure. Maybe I can make a mini one? So, sure enough, I could halve all the calculations for the mini rainbow bag and we were off. I was thinking by then that this mini rainbow bag would be just perfect for my 2 year old niece - or a big kid like me :)

After knitting faithfully to the pattern for a while, I began to notice some things didn't seem right. The overall shaping with increases didn't seem to be logically placed and my lovely oval short row coloured panels were shifting off to the left alarmingly. I re-read the pattern to make sure I'd not made a blundering mistake. Nope. No mistake. Somehow the increases needed to make the bag bigger at the middle weren't staying in a straight line up the centre of the bag - major problem. I'd already knitted 3/4 of the bag by then and I was not a happy bunny:(

So what to do now? Maybe a fresh look at it tomorrow will help me work out whether it's just me or the pattern that's the issue. Or, dump the pattern!! Oh, the irony though - if I'd just written a basic pattern out I'd have been fine, lol! I might just do that anyway and brush up my pattern writing skills:) So, today's lesson has been sometimes you should trust your instincts when you know your knitting is going squiffy. And maybe the pattern isn't always right.

Well, the big kid or the little kid will have to wait just a bit longer for their bag full of rainbows but it will happen I'm sure. There's always a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow now, isn't there? :)

Happy stripes

Dearie me! I'd completely forgotten to blog about these other stripey gloves I was knitting. I think the last time I posted about these was last november - crikey! I didn't realise they'd been on the needles for quite so long! Well, about time they were finished and had their ta-da moment:)

They are based on the same pattern as the previous stripey armwarmers but I decided to make more work for myself and add fingers as well. And I do like how the little blocks of colour have worked out visually. The fingers are a little neat on the stitch count using the given pattern but as I have small hands anyway it worked for me. If you wanted to add some more sts, you could cast on a few more on either side of each finger as you start to knit in the round. Will work out nicely that way.

The yarn I used for these is Wendy's Happy - capricorn colourway. The colours are lovely and it self stripes so not too many ends for changing colours on the whole. I had to cut the colours for the fingers to get much smaller sections of colour so lots more ends to sew in around the fingers - which with this being a bamboo and nylon mix isn't so good at hiding the threads. I also found it made the fingers feel a little constricted where the threads were too. Not so happy with that aspect so something to watch out for next time.

As much as I love these colours, I don't think I would use a bamboo mix yarn for a gloves project again. It seems obvious that gloves need a little elasticity to fit but also to hold them up on your arm and with bamboo that nice give is missing. In fact, it's annoying. I'm finding the gloves have a tendancy to slide a little down from the elbow and after a good bit of wear look a little baggy. Not the desired look really! A wash would reshape them or a damp spray and shaping but I've been warned that this yarn has a tendancy to lose a lot of its colour intensity in the wash so I'm reluctant to try! All that lovely colour down the drain - I think I'll try a damp spray just in case! That and some hidden elastic thread around the cuff;) Just a thought!

Despite all that, they're still going to be fun to wear this winter. I still have 2 x half balls left so maybe a scarf in the pipeline? Hmm, maybe a textured chevron stripe? Suggestions anyone? Righty-ho, off to have a gander through Ravelry to see if anything takes my fancy.

Back soon! elaine x

Stripes!

Time for a little catching up on projects. There are quite a few finished or nearly finished things going on at the moment that I haven't shown you yet - like these stripey armwarmers. They've been finished since last christmas but I just hadn't got around to taking photographs - sad but true. I completely forgot about them until I wanted to turn this pattern into gloves. The yarn is Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball - tropical colourway  - and it really is as bright as the photo - yum! I do love the graduating colours and the contrasting stripe effect. So much so that I think these will stay mine instead of a present :) Bright and cheery gloves are a must when the colder weather is drawing nearer - although I'm not dwelling too much on that thought for now!

There is a slight difference in the colour blending if you compare each glove closely but I actually like the difference. Maybe not technically perfect but it gives them more character I think. Wow, me saying I can live without perfectionism, lol! Take note, it might not happen that often:) The alternate stripes are achieved using the same ball from either end starting with a strong contrasting colour - the aqua and the orange. This means though that somewhere along the line the colours meet. I did have to edit the where the two colours crossed over so yellow didn't meet yellow coming the other way but I just broke the yarn and took as much as I needed out to get back to a decent contrast again - hence the slight difference on each glove.

The pattern itself is a basic 4ply armwarmer shape with 2 regular decreases every 6 rows down to the wrist. I used a pattern designed by Brigids Hearth which you can find here. I chose to have a rib cuff at the top and a roll top edge at the fingers but you could have whatever you wanted really. I've now tried the roll top edge instead of the rib on my pink gloves - which are to follow soon - but it doesn't work that successfully, needs a bit of grip to hold it in place. Heyho:) We live and learn!

It's meant to be sunny tomorrow so maybe good light for more photo taking of new works in progress. There's a decorative crochet panel I'm toying with as well that I'm itching to develop further so I'll keep you posted on its progress as I go too. 

Thanks for popping by today, 

elaine x

Whole lotta knitting going on....

The weather has been truly appalling this week so I've been indoors a lot planning and designing more than working on existing pieces. And although I could sit comfortably in the living room with a good film, I tend to find sitting at my computer with a decent space to put all my bits and bobs is more conducive to getting me in the creative ideas mindset. Kind of like a workstation where I focus on just work. It also helps that I can play music, browse Pinterest for new images and share them with you on my new facebook page - and probably check facebook and e-mails more than I really need to. But it's all part of the creative process, isn't it? :)

Also this weather reminds me that I can't really pretend there is anything left of summer :) and warmer, snuggly knitting is creeping back into my making list. This little project is just an experiment into the construction of armwarmers and the use of graduating colour, primarily using stripes. I love the contrasting colourways and how such a simple thing like changing proportions of colour can dramatically affect the whole look of the finished piece.

The three gloves above are all based on the same pattern using fingering weight sock yarns. The front two are Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball - colourway tropical fish, and the back pink/purpley striped yarn is Happy - capricorn colourway by Wendy. The wendy is a bamboo/nylon mix and it turned out much bigger and has no elasticity. Such a bad choice for gloves that should stay up your arm! But they look good so I'll keep them for myself. If anything they won't let me forget that lesson - probably every time they slip down, hehe.

But they are quite quick to knit up if you are using a pre-striped or graduating yarn. And no ends to sew in! The pattern is just a generic armwarmer/long glove pattern for 4ply/fingering yarns with regular decreases but what I'm really interested in is how I can take this form and manipulate it into something completely new construction-wise as well as playing with colour. And dyeing some graduated yarns specifically for this, of course:)

But the dyeing will have to wait a few days as all this rain has flooded the shed again so everything has to dry out before dyeing can recommence. Not a big worry though as everything is already up off the ground due to this happening at least twice a year, lol! But on the good side, I can stay nice and toasty inside and take advantage of the time to design some more. Who knows what will come out of it? I don't know either but it will be fun finding out;)

Back soon, elaine x

Happy, happy:)

There has been a little bit of christmas knitting going on over the last few days  - yummy stripey armwarmer gloves:) I love these so much its going to be hard to part with them! But I can console myself with the fact I still have another ball of Wendy's lovely 'happy' bamboo yarn - colourway capricorn - stashed away that I can knit up for me another time!

This yarn is a soft 4ply/fingering weight bamboo mix - 75% bamboo/25% nylon - with a lovely sheen to it and it is knitting up very nicely indeed. The bamboo doesn't have as much elasticity as wool and although it's looking fine on 2.5mm needles, I think it would have been slightly better on 2.25mm's with my tension.

As an experiment, I tried a row using the continental knitting style against my usual method of 'throwing' and the tension was much tighter but knitted up a lot quicker. Hmmmm. Knitting whole lengths of stocking stitch in the round for these gloves would certainly go a lot faster this way although I still haven't spent enough time mastering all the stitches K2tog, SSK's etc. yet. But the second glove isn't the time to experiment unless I want varying tensions and sizes of glove:)))

So far, I'm onto the fingers of glove one but I'm shortening the colour runs of the self stripe sock yarn a bit as I want jazzy odd fingers - of course! I'm using an adaptation of Brigids Hearth's armwarmers pattern which you can find here. It's only designed to be long mitts from elbow to just over the thumb, but I like gloves and if you're going to warm your arm, it's a shame to leave the fingers out!! It's a quick knit though and perfect for self-striping yarns.

Actually, this would be a brilliant pattern to use up those leftover small balls of sock yarn and much more personalised too. Shame most of my stash is DK or bigger;) I'll have to hunt out another pattern or modify this one. Do you think Christmas is going to end up being on a theme of gloves?? Wasn't intended to be but it's an idea ....... ;))) 

Chloe

Today I have the last of the baby knits - for now, anyway. Little baby girl arrived safe and sound last week and I think I will wait a bit before I knit anything new till I can get a gauge of what size she will need in the future. There is also the matter of summer coming up too when she won't be needing a lot of knits unless lightweight cottons.

So today we have 'Chloe', a lovely stripey ruffled edged little cardi designed by Alana Dakos of Never Not knitting. The design only costs $4 and you can use it from sizes 0-3mths right up to age 10-12. It's also a top down seamless construction so very few ends to sew in - yay! It's extremely well written so you could use the basic structure of increases to knit your own variations - solids, intarsia pattern, lace, embroidered daisies:-) I've also seen longer variations too, with and without the frill, crocheted edgings...... I've got a few new ideas already!

There is no button band so you have to make sure you wrap the alternating colours up the side neatly  - as this will be visible on the inside edge. I pressed it carefully so you couldn't see it from the front at all. A light press with a damp cloth really helped the ruffle lie flat too. (all my yarn is 100% wool though so if you are using acrylic or another man made yarn, don't use a cloth at all, just steam it about an inch or so above without touching your knitting with the iron - she says from experience!)

There is no neckline edging either so your cast on row had best be neat as it becomes your top visible edge:-)) I used a long tail cast on but thats just my preference as it gives nice even edge with a bit of stretch. You can also go to the knitting help cast on videos if you want to have a litle play at learning new cast on methods. I love this site:)

The button loops are just a crocheted chain matching whatever colour stripe was in the right place and the buttons are more jolly daisies - which will match the little red booties for as long as they fit.

The only modification I made was to substitute DK yarn for the worsted weight stated. Worsted is meant to give you 18st - 4"/10cm and my DK was giving me 22st - 4"/10cm so for the 0-3mths, I just went up a size and its worked pretty well. The width is pretty close to size 1 and you can continue increasing every 6 rows at the end if you think the DK is running on the short side. I didn't find that a problem at this size although I'd be more careful if I was knitting a larger childs sizing.

Gosh, that turned into a bit of a pattern review! But best I write it all down now as I'll need to remember these things the next time I want to knit it:-)) Now I think I need something different on the needles - a lace shawl maybe? Like the lovely peacock shawl or Jane's lovely Luiza? I think I may have to dye up some yarn especially for both of these.

I'm also going to reaquaint myself with Vivian this afternoon. It's raining outside, no gardening today although the plants are loving all the water and are growing like weeds - I'm sure the weeds are too! But anyway, a perfect wet day to be sitting inside knitting and watching an old film or two, don't you think?

Baby Jasmine

Gosh, this last week has flown by! The sun came out and the gardening started and that was it! Woosh! Week gone! But, I have been squeezing in some knitting in the evenings so I do have a little progress to show you.

This is the baby Jasmine cardigan designed by Louisa Harding. The yarn is the lavendar Sirdar Snuggly DK so its very soft to the touch. So far I've knitted the stocking stitch parts and added the lace border to the main section. I'm still knitting the lace border for the sleeves and then I can attach them and finish with a decorative edging around the front edge and neckline with buttons as a fastening. It is so small though - very dinky:-) Even smaller than the lacy lily bolero.

I have made a few alterations with this pattern. I changed the lacy edging pattern as it just had too much garter stitch for my tastes. ( I think it has something to do with too much texture next to all that smooth stocking stitch;-) I substituted a lovely wavy lace design instead and although it doesn't look as if it has as much length as the original as you are knitting, it does stretch out when you block it.  I really wanted to get a little flare to the edging to mimic a little dress shape so I deliberately knitted the border longer to compensate. I sewed it up using a 1:1 stitch ratio - a straight edge would probably need more like a 1:2 - 1 stitch from the lace edge to 2 sts from the body (roughly!)

So far, I've finished one sleeve and should finish the other tonight. If I'm on the ball, I may even get the sleeves sewn onto the body too, ready for the neckline edging tomorrow. Then buttons and finished! Then I think I'll move away from lace and think about colour and stripes! A stripey dress? or a little jumper/sweater? I found a lovely pattern for some stripey dungarees too! I don't think it gave a newborn size though so maybe keep that one in reserve for a few months!

Thinking about using this self striping sock yarn - nice and bright isn't it? This is a bamboo mix so it's lovely and soft to the touch, perfect for that baby softness. It may not be quite so stripey on bigger items like a baby dress though but I'll test it out to see. Still no news on the baby front so I still have a little time left, although it can't be that much longer now, eh sis?:-)

Back soon with some lovely stripey goodness - if I don't get hijacked by the garden again!

Lucy bag all finished!

Today, we have another finished project, my stripey lucy bag:-) Goodness, my WIP's are coming down a little - still not quite to manageable proportions but very nearly. So another one disappeared from the side menu - yay!

All I had to do for this was to sew on the handles and make the flower decorations but it seemed to take a while as I had to play with colour combinations for a while to get the four best flowers for each handle join. I think I may have enough extras to decorate a few more bags though:-) but they were fun to do and rather addictive!

I followed Lucy's tutorial for the double flower although after the first few, I realised I wasn't following the american terminology and I had a slightly different shape emerging, but hey, they look good too. I didn't bother with leaves as I liked the flowers on their own but I was also a bit impatient to get it finished so I could use it! A lovely bright cheery bag, especially on a dull winters day. Very Lucy but also very me;-))

There is a little knitting going on but mostly I'm still sorting furniture out after having to clear two rooms to lay some laminate. How come it all fitted in before but now it doesn't? That's what happens when you decide to improvise and move things in limited space - you end up with a pile of furniture in the middle of the room! You wouldn't think I'd drawn plans to scale and everything:-)) I know a bit OCD of me! Never mind:-) It'll all go somewhere.....

As long as I still have some knitting to hand to keep my sanity!

Stripey lucy bag

Hurrah! We have blogging lift-off today:-) Yes, my monitor arrived at lunchtime and I've been fiddling around trying to get as accurate a colour to the real knitted and crocheted thing as possible so I can post some photos!!

And here we have a bright start to the week with my Stripey Lucy bag - so called as Lucy from attic24 designed this and kindly wrote up a tutorial for all those who would like one of their own. I haven't quite finished this yet though as you can see the handles still need attaching and the flowers are half done as we speak. I have actually crocheted quite a few flowers now but I keep playing with the colours so I'll end up with twice as many as I'll need, but that's fine as I can save them to decorate another project sometime.....:-)

The bag itself is constructed with a simple circular base, increased to whatever size you fancy, then the increases stop and you carry on crocheting a tube till you think the height is right for your bag. The bag also has a lovely scalloped edging around the top - which is the same detailing as my stripey mitts but they were a Lucy pattern as well!

I didn't follow Lucy's recommended join as I didn't want to cut and knot the threads but it ended up looking a bit messy on the 'right' side of the bag - you can see it has a 'jog'/obvious join centre right of the picture. Rather than take it all back, I just turned it inside out as the join is a bit subtler:-) Next time I'll pay attention to the instructions:-)

So the bag is just waiting its little flower and leaf decorations and then it will be officially finished - my first FO of the year. This is a lovely quick crochet and works well with all the pattern details like the edging and the flowers. I went for a rainbow palette but I'm thinking this would look lovely in a more monochromatic colour scheme of chocolates and mochas or with an antiqued colour scheme of pale greens and muted pinks......mmmm!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas......

I'm sure something happens in December - normal time must get compressed  because I just don't seem to have as much knitting time in December compared to every other month:-)) I plan, I knit, I even work out 'realistically' just how long each item will take to make, faint, revise list, repeat....... until I have a manageable list, of sorts.

But this year, I actually put less on my making list and I foolishly considered myself ahead of the game this year - ha, ha, ha. The fates do have a way of coming back to bite you when you think these things:-)

I've even noticed how much faster I get at knitting in December. Last year I was churning out mittens, gloves and hats at a scary speed. ( I also wondered why there were very little knitting projects for the next fortnight and remembered the knitting cramp I got in my hands every time I even thought about picking up a pair of needles;-))

But this year, things have just gone pear shaped. I don't really know why. What should have been a few simple knits have somehow become huge never ending projects. Jinxed, every one!  Stitches slip off and run back, simple maths won't add up, patterns knit up super tight and not to gauge - sigh! The knitting fates have a few more spanners up there waiting, I'm sure, and being tired and out of love with knitting right now, I've decided to take heed and throw in the making towel this christmas.

But instead of feeling the accustomed guilt, I just feel relief! Whew! I didn't realise I was getting quite so stressed about the whole thing. And if I'm not happy then the knitting becomes a chore and these are gifts that should be made with love, not lots of curse words:-))

So, although I have actually got a few finished things, like this new pink 'turn a square' hat and even a half finished pair of matching mittens, I think either I can keep them for birthdays or if I'm really smart, get a head start on christmas for next year!! But just don't tell the fates quite yet ..........:-)

Turn a square... or two

It always happens at this time of the year - the knitting rush towards christmas is on and the gaps between posts gets longer! So much making going on that I can't show you quite yet but for now you can get a peek at the hat I finished last night. The weather is so dull today I had to use a lamp for photos but you can see it's a stripey blue beanie from Jared Flood's 'Turn a Square' pattern.

The pattern is super easy to knit up and I finished this in an afternoon/evening. It's worked in worsted weight using one solid and one tonal yarn. The lighter stripe is my tonal yarn but it is very subtle in these photos. I think the contrast between the two yarns may be too much - it gives really definite stripes but the tonal subtleties are a bit lost. Maybe having the lighter colour as the predominant one would help.

I used two DK yarns  - which didn't seem the same thickness, go figure! -  so I had to make some pattern alternations. The pattern calls for stripes in 2 rows, then 3 row thicknesses. My thinner yarn was for the three rows but didn't look much thicker than my chunkier two row yarn so I ended up knitting 4 instead. Now this is finished I'm thinking it is an excellent beanie but a bit neat to be flattering for the people I have it in mind for as presents so I'm going to cast on a few more stitches for the next one to give a slightly looser fit.

And I've even got the yarn all ready waiting to be cast on:-) It has a slight yellow tinge from the artificial light but this should knit up to be a lovely soft tonal pink and grey hat. I may change the solid colour to a grey tone but it depends if I have any in my stash! Mmmm, I think there is a little angora left from the soft grey cornflower cowl....... I'm thinking that would work better. Keep you posted on how this works out. If there is decent light tomorrow, you may even get some colour accurate photos!

Oh, and there are some snowflakes in the wind this week I have to show you - metaphorically speaking:-) Now back to some christmas speed knitting....... see you soon!

Stripey Zauberball

A new knitting project is going on this week,  full of yummy colour - remember this lovely ball of Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball? Tropical fish is the colourway and I just love it. It's just been sitting in my basket and has actually been started a few times but I just didn't like or want this yarn knitted up in anything that didn't show it off to its full yumminess. So, back it went waiting to be knitted, and it has waited, and waited.....:-))

Till last week when I was looking for a bright yarn to knit some armwarmers or possibly long gloves with a bit of pattern altering. Pattern needed fingering weight and I wanted coloured stripes so the tropical fish just jumped out at me and before long was on the needles.

The pattern is 'Armwarmers' by Brigids Hearth and is an easy knit pattern for elbow length armwarmers. I decided to split my one ball for contrasting stripes and I am fully expecting that the colours will merge just when I don't want them to,  just like my noro socks - which still aren't finished:-) For a bit of variation this time, I chose to have unequal widths of stripes - 4 rows of the red and 6 of the blue/green. I thought it would work quite well for a longer length of st.st knitting.

I chose to start striping right from the beginning including the rib cuff. This was maybe a mistake - from a distance it keeps the stripes looking even right to the edge but when you look at the knit close-up, the rib distorts the orange colour band and doesn't look as nice - to me. I decided to leave it but next time, I'll start striping after the rib detail.

Overall though, I love how these gloves are turning out - yes, I think these will be gloves as I can't resist putting stripey fingers on them;-)) I have stopped in this picture where the pattern ends for armwarmers, so you can imagine just how they could look. Nice! I did have a little issue with the colours merging around the yellow area but I was strong and 'broke' the thread, took out a bit of yarn till the colours contrasted enough again and restarted knitting.

(You know how I hate breaking yarn! But if its going to spoil the gloves.... then I have to be strong -but its just so permanent!  - and I like yarn to find its own way usually, that's part of the challenge. But I have knitted my noro socks too many times trying to solve this naturally, that I'm resolved just to be practical and concede it will never work without intervention!!)

One thing that is a major issue is that these are a VERY snug fit. Usually fingering weight gloves have a circumferemce of around 60sts at the wrist. These start at 70sts at the elbow and decrease to 48sts at the wrist. That is quite neat! Feels more like those arm support bandages;-)) I think the best solution for this would be either to knit the exact same pattern with a thicker yarn like sportweight or DK/light worsted weight or stick with fingering weight and alter the numbers for a better fit. I think I will end up trying both as I like long gloves and if I have time may knit more as presents for christmas so I'll let you know how I get on.

Question is, do I keep this rather neat fitting one or rip it back and start again? Zauberball isn't known for its durability and does get a bit fuzzy so will it damage the yarn by taking it back? It was a bit splitty to knit with too. Maybe I'll wear it for a little bit and if the circulation gets cut off on that arm then I'll have to admit defeat;-))

Birdie decoration

A little crochet project I finished over the weekend - when I had hammered my thumb and couldn't knit:-) This little birdie decoration is courtesy of Lucy over at Attic24 where she has written out a tutorial to help you make it - cool! In fact, it's two tutorials as the first is to crochet a circular base which can be used for bags, cushions etc. and the second for the actual bird assembly.

Its also very cool as I learned a different way to join rounds. It means you have to cut the yarn and knot it, which I don't like doing much but its hidden and has less of that 'jogging' effect I had on the mitts in the round. But its all good and another method I can use when I need to.

Anyway, back to the birdie:-) Isn't he nice? I think he's just perfect for a christmas decoration and I have the idea - but maybe not the stamina -  to make lots of mini birdies for the christmas tree this year.

The tutorial made little flowers for the top of the hanging loop and I had to try lots of colour variations before I got one I liked. But now I have a little garden of crocheted flowers left - which need to find a home. Maybe I can make them into a garland and use it on the christmas tree instead of tinsel:-) They don't take long to make either. I like crocheting flowers and finding new templates to use. I think Lucy has a different flower tutorial on her site too which I must check out soon.

The only thing I'm not sure about is the legs - bless, they do dangle just a bit and look a bit spindly:-) Maybe I need to shorten them, and add a tail the same colour as the beak. I saw a version of this with a tail and it seemed to balance the birdie well. And as soon as you think 'tail', you look at it and think something is missing. Either that or I leave it without legs! It still has to be padded to give the final 3D look but its almost finished.

Now to try some mini birds and flower garlands.....

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......