Project parade begins

I'm going to start by showing the last project I finished over break. I started these, I think it was, on the 25th. I finished them with just a few moments before I had to leave for the train on the 27th.

I think of them now as my "Woman vs. Wool Challenge" mitts, because during part of the time I was working on them, I was watching "Man Vs. Food" on Travel Channel. (I admit it: it's one of my total-guilty-pleasure television shows. Though I will say I enjoy the interesting regional restaurants more than the "challenges;" as one of my friends says: "He sweats when he's eating that massive an amount of food; that can't be right." But I still enjoy the show.)

These are the Genmaicha Mitts. The pattern is available for sale on Ravelry. It's a pretty clear and easy-to-follow pattern, though, for those who are chart-averse, you should know that the cable pattern is totally charted and not written out line-by-line. (I actually prefer working from charts, so that was not an issue for me). This is actually the second go-round on these; the first time I was using yarn that was sold to me as a fingering weight and as I began to knit it up I realized it was more like a dk weight - I tried dropping down to size 0 needles and nearly got gauge but the fabric was so thick and the knitting was so tight it was unpleasant to work on, so I ripped those out (they will become a different pair of mitts in the future) and took out some green sock yarn that I had in my stash, and decided I'd rather have mitts of it than socks of it.



The yarn is Simply Sock Yarns' "house" brand yarn, the color is called "wheatgrass." It's a really good basic sock yarn - easy to work with, and last I checked, it came in a bunch of colors, so it would be good for either making a very specific color of socks, or for doing colorwork projects.

The pattern was easy to work...as I said, it's all charted out and it makes sense. And the cables look really wonderful. Cables are not that hard to do but they come out looking far more complex than the work it takes to make them (which is why I like doing cabled things). The cabled rib also serves to "take up" the fabric a little, so the mitts stretch to fit. (Like many knitted items, they look better on the appropriate body part than they do "empty"):



Of course, right now, it's far too warm to think of wearing mitts (though a couple of days up in Illinois, I might have welcomed having these done). But they'll be nice when the cool weather comes back.