Slow progress

While Tim is pushing ahead full steam, I'm slowing trekking up the hill. Not only is he a faster knitter, but he's also more focused. Well done, Tim!

But I do have a bit of progress to show off so far...

Yesterday at lunch, I finally made it to the thumb separation. And the good news is that it seems to fit me so far. A good thing considering I picked the colors to match my winter coat. You can see in this photo how the garter stitch hem keeps flipping up. I'm not convinced yet that blocking will fix this. At this point, my options are to just flip it to the underside and stitch it down or to cut it off and knit some sort of other hem. I'm leaning towards the second option because then the hem border could be in the purple yarn.

Anyway, I made more progress last night after work while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation (streaming now on Netflix!) and cringing at the sweaters that they put on Wesley. I'm just starting the first flower on the back of the mitten in purple. The colors contrast so nicely and I'm much happier with his yarn choice than my original pick.

So, a little bit of progress to show for my time. Time to stick to my knitting for a bit and get more accomplished!

Shaky Start

So, I diligently started the Andalus Mittens on July 1...and things went badly.  I wanted to do a different hem (just a provisional cast-on, a quick four rows of plain  stockinette, a purl row, four more rows of plain stockinette, and then join the live stitches with the provisional cast-on before starting the color work).  Total failure.  My color work gauge is so much tighter than my regular gauge (and I am a tight knitter to begin with) that I couldn't knit tightly enough in plain stockinette to match my color work gauge and I didn't want to decrease the stitch count.  (Did I mention these mittens are going to be bulletproof?)  So after multiple tries...*cast-on, knit, rip, repeat from *...I finally gave up and did the called for four rows of k2, p2.

I worked through the wrist pattern and decided I wasn't happy that I wouldn't be able to wear it when I was done.  So, I went stash diving...I came up with some Bonkers Handmade Originals Hand Dyed Sport Wool (given to me by Teri) and some Mission Falls 136 Merino Superwash.  I had not yet learned my lesson, so I tried to do the different hem with the same tragic results...*cast-on, knit, rip, repeat from *.

I finally decided to do it (mostly) as written and now, the first mitten is done!

Onward!

Nothing more to see here.  Knit along...

And we're off!

I searched through Ravelry to see if I could find a different pattern that could work with the Tove yarn and I didn't fall in love with any of them. So instead I searched through my stash for a fingering weight yarn that would work with the Vinterblomster pattern. Success!

Here's my swatch...

The white yarn is Jawoll, green is Cascade Heritage and purple is Crafty in a Good Way (a local yarn dyer). I would have also swatched the green on a white background but if you look closely in the upper right corner, the needle snapped.

No matter, on the morning of July 1st before heading to work I cast on for the first mitten. I had company from out of town for the holiday weekend so as of today I only have this much to show:

I've almost completed the second chart which will probably be completed very soon. I'm not thrilled with the look of the garter stitch hem so I might flip it under and stitch it down...or I might cut it off and knit an actual hem. Time will tell. Not something I have to decide right now. Of course, I'm even debating lining the mitten too. Clearly I'm over ambitious as always.