conclusions, beginnings, and a yarn bribe.

Things have been in a shameful state recently here chez Looking Glass. One semester ended, a new one began, and ALL kinds of work did not get done. That Chaucer paper about which I jauntily wrote a few weeks ago is still incomplete, and I've got a big stack of papers to grade that are so late that my students have started joking around about their status as historical documents. I've been whiny and neurotic and just generally a loser, and I'm downright peeved at myself.

Ergo, very little knitting to speak of. I have only knit about 2 more pattern repeats on my mitten, mostly during the episodes of Lost I've taken time out to watch. These will be awesome mittens if I can ever finish them before winter ends! Just trying them on for size, they are very warm.



Only two things are providing hope: my darling, funny boyfriend and a shipment of new Knitpicks Felici I bought myself as a yarn bribe. What gorgeous, jewel-like colors! But I can't knit it until that paper is in.


Now, Jennifer K., get your act together and finish your $@&%ing paper!!

Sew I Knit's mitten!

I am officially the author of a pattern -- Sew I Knit has knit her own pair of my Latvian mittens! Click here to see the picture of her beautiful work.

Almost finished.

The pair is almost complete. Here's a progress shot to show what the pre-duplicate stitch mitten looks like. I think that the wrist pattern looks much more "ethnic" with the centers in white, but I am torn about the hand pattern; now that I see them side by side I might prefer the one without the red centers to the boxes. Clearly visible, too, is the effect that twelve million times of turning the mitten inside out and jamming your fingers in there to do the duplicate stitch, in terms of widening out the mitten hand; I am confident that blocking will fix this problem, as neither mitten has been blocked yet.

Latvian-inspired mitten pattern

Here's the pattern for my "Latvian" mitten:

Requirements:
size 4 double-pointed needles
Karabella Aurora 8 (94 yards/skein) or other worsted weight yarn: 2 skeins color A, 1 skein color B, 1 skein color C
Tapestry needle
waste yarn

Ladies' size small
Gauge: 26 stitches and 28 rows = 4 inches

CO 40 stitches in color A. Knit 1 row, then join yarn in the round. Knit 3 more rounds, then *K2tog, YO, rep. from * for one whole round. Knit 4 more rounds.
Switch to color B and begin pattern chart. Notice that some rows require you to increase or decrease by a stitch or two in order to fit the whole pattern repeat, and in switching from the wrist patterns to the main hand pattern you will increase by five stitches.

* note: the red centers of the main pattern's boxes, as well as the white centers of the cuff pattern's diamonds, can be done in duplicate stitch if preferred. If you choose to do so, just knit the boxes entirely in white and the diamonds entirely in black.

Dark outlines on the chart indicate where to place thumb gore for left and right mittens. Inside this outline, increase as charted for length charted. At final row of thumb gore, knit row, then place thumb stitches on a length of waste yarn. In the next round, knit to thumb stitches, cable cast on 3 stitches to make up for 3 original thumb gore stitches, then continue round.

Decrease for top of mitten as charted, using right-leaning (k2tog) decreases on right sides of mitten tops, and left-leaning (ssk) decreases on left sides of mitten tops. When four stitches are left on needles, break yarn, draw both colors through loops, pull through to wrong side of piece, and knot.

Pick up thumb stitches from waste yarn and pick up 11 stitches around hole left by thumb gore, continuing the stripe pattern. Join yarn and knit in the round until thumb reaches about 1/3 of the way up the thumb nail. Begin decreasing by four stitches in each round as charted. When six stitches remain on needles, break yarn, draw through loops, pull through to wrong side of thumb, and knot.

When mitten is finished, fold under and tack up picot hem. Weave in all ends and block mittens together to make sure they are the same size.

Latvian completed

The first of my Latvian-inspired mittens is finished! Here it is, pre-blocking, in a somewhat dimly-lit photo (stupid NYC drizzle three days in a row!).

Specifics:
Karabella Aurora 8 in black, off-white and bright red
Size 4 double-pointed needles
Design: my own, based on traditional Latvian patterns

The patterns are taken directly from some mittens on the Riga Summit site (linked in the posts below). There are some non-traditional cheats that I did do tailor the mitten to my tastes (and skills):

The cuff (which is unflatteringly showing the pattern jog on the right side) uses a traditional pair of patterns, but I made it narrower: 8 stitches smaller than the mitten body. This ends up being just tight enough to hold out the cold, but not so tight that it's hard to get on or looks like a weird sausage. With a body stitch count of 48 stitches per row, the cuff is 5/6 the size of the hand.


The thumb has a gore and is in a different pattern (fuzzy picture). This is partially because I am not a fan of peasant thumbs, and partially because I gave up on trying to figure out a way to have a gore and still keep the thumb pattern lined up with the body pattern. Math was melting my brain. For a while I had this feverish idea that I could cast on one entire pattern repeat more than I wanted for the fingers, then do a peasant thumb and decrease by one entire pattern repeat right above it. I still think this would be possible, I just didn't have the guts or the patience to try it. Plus, I kind of like the way the stripey thumb looks.

The biggest cheat of all is (I hope) relatively undetectable. Any row that seems to have three colors in it is actually two colors, with the third color duplicate-stitched on. So all of those red centers to squares in the mitten body pattern are actually added later. This saved me a LOT of hassle with yarns tangling and carried-over red yarn showing through on the right side. It was not quite as speedy and carefree to execute as I thought it would be. If you look closely on the picture of the cuff you can see that there is a bit of red behind one of the center white stitches; that's the stitch underneath the duplicate-stitch white.

So here it is, in all its glory, with drizzly NYC in the background:


And work begins apace on the second mitten:


When I have the time I will write up the pattern for anybody who'd like it.

Taking a stab at a Latvian

... mitten, that is. Or at least one whose patterns are Latvian. I was inspired by the following sites:
http://www.liis.lv/majtur/darbmac/raksti.htm
http://www.rigasummit.lv/en/id/cats/nid/698/

The second link is courtesy of the Stranded Colorwork Challenge blog.

But the problem with all of those mittens for me is the slightly unnecessary pointiness of the tops and the fact that the bottoms are not smaller around the wrist. I personally like to have no place on my body where cold air can seep in during the winter, so I like a tighter wrist. So I spent a lot of time brainstorming and sketching:


Eventually becoming a little obsessive:


Here is the progress so far:


You can't necessarily tell from the picture, but it's not really a traditional Latvian mitten, aside from the patterns: I'm making the cuff 3/4 the size of the mitten body. I did a picot-edged hem, and thought it would be smart of me if I also ribbed the folded-under part of the hem. In retrospect I don't think this was such an amazing idea, as it doesn't lie quite right now, but it does have a nifty sort of sea-urchin shape to it as a result:


Of course, that will go away when I tack down the hem.