superbowl knitting

I just found out last night my mom had a mild stroke and is in the hospital. There is no paralysis, but some weakness and disorientation. Maybe a bit more "I'm old and I can say whatever I want, and if I don't want you to do something, I may not cooperate because I'm losing control of my life" which might otherwise be mis-interpreted as meanness. My sister has been told recently, more than once, "you're not the boss of me" but the power-of-attorney says otherwise. Enough personal news. Back to knitting news.

Partly because of concern for my mom, I was somewhat distracted today and wanted some easy knitting with just a bit of paying attention, so I decided to knit some mittens. I know I have enough projects started but I needed a diversion, and I gave myself permission to start something new. I used the pattern from the calendar from Friday's post where I whined about the [lack of] gauge. I used some knitpicks yarn (WOTA) from stash. I started with a full skein of tan (48 gr.) from a purchase for a not so well defined project (that didn't materialize) and a part skein of dark royal blue (18 gr.) left from clogs I think.

I measured and recorded the weights because the pattern calls for 2 100 gram balls and I thought that was more about yarn sales than requirements. Now maybe that's just me and my cynical side. But I'm just sayin'...

Now this pattern is supposed to make a women's medium, but with a cast-on of 30 and a gauge (from the website) of 5 spi, I don't think so. I used a KP options 32" circ size 6us in the magic loop method as I wasn't in the mood to find some size 6 dpns. If I have size 6. I really should do a needle inventory. But I digress...

I could knit WOTA on a size 7 but I thought mittens should be knit a bit tighter. And size 6 is just a smidge smaller than size 7. Half a millimeter by some standards, a quarter millimeter by others.

Not sure what gauge I ended up with (I'll measure and report later) but here's where I got:


I left the thumb open because the mitt looks like it will fit a middle size child and I'm not sure how long thumbs are for children of that size. So I put a yarn in the thumb stitches where the pattern wanted me to do a lot of k2togs to close in the thumb. I'm going to take the mitt to work and send it home with some coworker for a try on test.

I found a few more issues with the pattern during today's knitting. There are some increases to make a thumb gusset. Somewhat non standard as far as most of the mitten patterns I've read, but I knitted the increases where the pattern said. Then when it came time to put the thumb stitches on a length of yarn to hold them, it wasn't exactly the stitches between the increases that it wanted me to hold. I ignored the pattern and put the increase stitches and the stitches between on the yarn to hold. It was the right number per the patt.

Also when knitting the thumb, the patt said to pick up 4 stitches in the gap, but there wouldn't have been much gap, as the patt didn't tell me to add on any stitches in the hand area. (I added two unauthorized stitches; I recommend you do too). Then when it came time to do the thumb top decreases, they seem to have forgotten about those 4 picked up stitches. No big deal but I did have to look back to verify for myself that if I did a k2tog around on 14 stitches (14 is 10 plus 4) I would have 7 stitches left, and not 5 (which you would have if you had 10 stitches with no additional stitches picked up in the gap).

There was also some koigu sock knitting but the heel on sock number 2 is not yet closed in. maybe tomorrow...

j