Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Falling Leaves Mittens

Yay, I can post pictures of all my holiday gift knitting! Hope you enjoy, and leave links to your holiday projects in the comments for me to look at, too! 

Leaves Mittens

Gifted to: Allyson, although when I started this, I didn't know that they would be for her! However, when I was done, I knew that I wanted to give these colorwork beauties to someone who would really appreciate them, and needed something extra special this Christmas. I guess I started a lot of projects this year without knowing who'd they would go to! 

Pattern: Woodland Winter Mittens, by Kerin Dimeler-Laurence. 

Closeup Leaves Mittens

Yarn: Knit Picks Palette in 7 colors. The yarn and pattern came as part of a kit that I received for Christmas in 2011. There's colorwork charts that correspond to the months October through March, and enough yarn in the kit to make 6 pairs of mittens. That's a lot of fiddly colorwork mittens, so I'm proud to have finished at least one pair in 2012! 

Needles: Size 2 circs with a 40" wire for magic loop. These would be super annoying on DPN's. 

Modifications: The pattern recommends a size 1 needle, but after I swatched, I realized my gauge was way off. And I'm not the only one - countless others on Ravelry said that they went up one or even two needle sizes in order to get mittens that fit. Part of that is the tiny needles - but the pattern is also written very small. These mittens were fitted on me (and Allyson), and I have tiny hands. I think I'll try knitting the next pair on a size 3 needle and see how it goes, or add a border of extra background stitches.

I also added 4 more stitches to the thumb, which was worryingly small, and just worked those extra 4 stitches in the background color around the thumb pattern. 

Leaves Mittens Front

Watched While Knitting: Season 1 of Friday Night Lights. Everyone's been talking about this show for years, and I was all like, "Yeah, but I don't like football!" I'm dumb - this show is awesome. The camera work and characters are both equally amazing, and I think now that the holidays are over (I go crazy for Christmas movies), Chris and I will watch more. 

12 comments :

  1. Wow! Those mittens are incredible! So cool.

    I had the same response to FNL—figured I wouldn't be into it since I hate sports, but devoured the whole series in about a month. Soooo good!

    xoxo
    C

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    1. I think FNL will probably take up the rest of my January!

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  2. Awesome mittens! I also often start knitting things without knowing who they'll be for, it gets revealed to me in the process.
    I did a few posts about some xmas gifts recently over at my place :)

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    1. Thanks, lady! I'm going to come check out your stuff!

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  3. These are great! You're right, a knitter could really appreciate the work that went into them. I'd like to try colorwork mittens, but use something like Noro for the foreground pattern, where I don't have to worry about changing yarn with every color. Friday night lights helped me breeze through several projects. I've been wanting to rematch it but, I get emotionally invested in Matt's life, lol. The first episode I was like, "this is exactly like our town!" And it is.

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    1. Yeah, when Allyson saw them, she asked if it was Chroma, which has that gradual color change. Nope! Just used 7 different colors! I think I'll have lots of little leftover balls.

      Matt is such a great character! Thus far I'm really enjoying him and his friends the most.

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  4. Um yeah, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS! SO GOOD! I cry like a baby in it. And I totally want Coach and Mrs. to be my parents.

    But yeah, the mittens are so cute!

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    1. Right!? They are so responsible - loving, yet firm!

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  5. the beauty of these just takes my breath away. super jealous of your mad skillz.

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  6. these mittens are loverly and very neat knit work. they look like northern lights colours.

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  7. these are lovely very northern lights. very neat

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