Thursday, January 22, 2009

Selbuvotter Mittens

Ravelry Project Link
Yarn: Knit Picks Palette (Mist and Black, less than 1/2 a skein of each)
Needles: For hand: Knit Picks Options size 4 (3.5mm) and 32" cable.
For thumb: size 2 (2.75mm) Birch Brittany DPN's (which I love by the way, thanks again Celeste!!!).

Love these mittens. They were really fast to knit, but still challenging. Colourwork has taken me a long time to master. In general though the pattern was very easy to follow and execute, I definitely see more Selbuvotter in my future.
I made a few mistakes on the first mitten which I promptly frogged, and I'm glad I did. Both mitten match exactly (except for the thumbs, see below) and they fit perfectly too!

Knitting the thumbs gave me the most grief. I used the method of knitting the thumbs sts onto waste yarn then knitting again in pattern. When it came time to take the waste yarn out, I had a few problems getting the pattern right, you'll notice the patterns inside the thumbs are different. I thought about frogging, but opted not to, since I couldn't figure out how to fix the second to match the first and maintain the same number of sts. I'm very random about what things will bother me in a finished knitted project, and since these mittens were for me and the mistake was in the inside I decided it wouldn't bother me. If these were for a gift I would definitely frog and try again, I think even a non-knitter would be sure to notice the inconsistency eventually!
These have a lot of "star power" if you will; out of all my handknits, they have been drawing the most attention. It's nice to get complimented on handknits, but always interesting to have to explain that "I'm really not superhuman...", "knitting is really not that hard" and "it's ok, you can touch it".


But still, I must admit enjoying the attention. :D

4 comments:

pdxknitterati/MicheleLB said...

Your Selbuvotter are beautiful and striking; I think it's partly from the black on white! It really stands out. I knit some similar Selbu mittens from Folk Mittens; they are white on navy, and they are not nearly as eye popping. I love yours!

Dany said...

WONDERFUL!!!
Congratulations for your work, I love the pattern!

Teresa said...

They're lovely! I think the pictures are beautiful too.

Jennifer said...

love these! I'm smitten with your mittens.