Diamond Thrummed Mittens pattern

A dedicated post just for the mittens...
Until I figure out how to host a pdf (I'm trying to figure out how to do it on Ravelry right now...),
email me or leave a comment, and I'll send you the pattern.

ETA: I think I've got it: a Rav link for a free download. Diamond Thrummed Mittens

Progress (sort of)

So, after much head-bashing, I've got charts that fit on a page, I've figured out how to add them to a text document, and I've started typing up instructions. At this rate, I should have this damn pattern ready sometime before summer... Fall, at the latest.
How about if everybody just comes to my house, and I'll teach the mitten, instead? It would be easier on all of us, I think. I make pretty good coffee.
BYOB, though.

Caught in a Whirlwind

So there's been all kinds of activity here, chez Mango, not that you can tell from my posting.

Item 1: I survived my first jury duty. (Two more to go, then my civic duty is over for a while.) It was actually very interesting. I enjoyed all the little courtesies and rituals between attorneys, judge, and jury. (It's pretty cool to have someone call "All rise!" when you walk into the courtroom. I'd thought only judges got that one.) And the case had all kinds of drama, with high-speed car chases, sideswiped police cruisers, finishing with a two-car bang-up ending. Though the drama was a little hard to maintain in the dry tones of the state troopers' testimony... In the end, we deliberated hard - just like the judge told us to - and nitpicked each charge until we were all satisfied with our decision. As a group, we were thoughtful, careful, and conscientious.
And, Norma? I made a point to notice the stenographer - actually, stenographers, since we had a different one each day.

Item 2: Since I needed a knitting project for the downtime in the jury room (and believe me, there was a lot of it. A 9am start time was actually closer to 9:25; a ten minute recess usually lasted 20 minutes.) I cast on Kathleen Taylor's Picot Hem Stranded Snowflake Hat. (Rav link)
Because of course I needed a new project... The Selbuvotter glove was too dangerous looking with all those pointy metal needles, and the thrummed mitten was too messy to try to tote around (all the jurors would have ended up covered in fuzzy fibers. Sorry sorry...) The hat was innocuous-looking enough to make it through security - they might have let the glove through, but I didn't want to take the chance of having it confiscated, leaving me knitting-less for the day.
I got a bit of knitting done, anyway. The other women on the jury lamented not bringing their knitting and crocheting...

Item 3: I got my eggplant plied. (Does that sound odd to anyone else? Try reading it out loud. Maybe it's just me...) Anyway, the original plan was to spin for 10 minutes a day, but I kept getting sucked into the spinning vortex, and next thing I knew I had 300+ yards of 3ply. The best part is, it's an actual worsted weight yarn - which is the first time I've been able to achieve that weight. (My default is fingering - I think it's my innate stinginess trying to coax as many yards as possible out of a hank of fiber.) Laurie is the one to thank for it - she gave me excellent advice on tightening the take-up, and next thing I knew, I had real yarn! She's my hero!


And just in case I get any spare time...

Item 4: I bought Maplewing. And yarn. (I lusted for the red/orange of the original shawl, but knew I would never have anything to wear that color with. So I wimped out and got a neutral sort of tan. Though I may go back to the LYS and get the deep evergreen laceweight they had. Or that dark purple. But since everything I make lately seems to be green or purple, maybe I should stick with the tan just in order to break it up...) I'm trying to resist the urge to cast it on Right Now. Because I have a feeling that if I cast on one more project, my house will explode. Critical mass was reached long ago...

Item 5: Still working on the second thrummed mitten. I'm starting to collect photos for a post for the pattern.



Stay tuned...
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Still spinning, still knitting, still griping about the snow

That says it all.

I've started the second bobbin of the purple roving. I'm trying to just spin in short intervals, since I've been not spinning for so long. My back muscles on my right side bother me if I do too much too fast (which is what I want to do. It's really hard to stop and step away from the wheel. Love. This. Color.) It's the same set of muscles that used to bother me when I was working as a florist - especially if I was doing something fiddly like making a lot of corsages for a wedding. I'd end up with muscle pain for days. I think I tense my right shoulder, and the tension just echoes down through the muscles of my back.

Still working on the thrummed mitten, too. The chart looks like it's right (so far so good!) - it's not a perfect match to the #1 mitten, but it's what I had actually intended in the first place, so it's all working out for the best. I need to tinker with the chart a bit, though, to get it down to a reasonable size. It's still bleeding over onto another sheet of paper, so I'm trying to beat it into submission make it a little more printer-friendly.

And as for cussing the snow? That's pretty much non-stop this time of year. I want Spring, dammit! Not another 12 freakin' inches of freakin' snow. Which has been falling sideways all day.

I hate that.
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Holy Crap, we have achieved chart!

After copious amounts of head-thudding, I finally managed to persuade a spreadsheet to show what I want. It's too big to fit on one page, and refuses to print in landscape mode, but at least the thumb is in the right place and it's roughly mitten-shaped with the pointy bit at the top where it belongs.
*sigh*
Now to attempt knitting from it. If that works, I'll share.
If not, it's back to the head pounding. At least I've gotten good at that.

Still no chart. Though I now have some interesting lumps on my head...

I've gotta take a break from this charting madness. I could just do this so easily with a sheet of graph paper and a felt-tip marker... Why, oh, why isn't it just as simple to do it in a post-able format?
I knew I wasn't going to like the 21st century.

In the meantime, I've been looking at pretty pictures here. Love Drops Designs (Garnstudio) - more fabulous patterns than you can shake a circular at! I started out looking for a pattern for a vest; I've got some lovely yarn that was Christmassed at me and a vest seemed like a good plan.
Then, of course, I got distracted. I found this slipper pattern - and I am seriously in love! I don't actually need another pair of slippers, but I won't let that stop me from making another pair of slippers. It's all about the process, after all.
And while I was peeking around, I found what might be the perfect pattern for my handspun Cotswold.
Cardigan? Check. Simple lines? Check. Classic style? Check. Gauge matches my swatch? Check. Go check it out! (Is it okay to post their photo here? I don't know the rules...)

Charts 'R Not Us

Spent the whole afternoon trying to cobble together a chart for the thrummed mittens. It's a wonder that designers don't ask 80 kabillion dollars for a pattern...
I'm sure I was doing it the hard way. (Is there any other way?) And I'm also sure there's some geewhiz-spiffy software out there that would make my life 100 percent easier, but since I can't afford it anyway, I'll have to stick with the slamming-my-head-on-the-desk-using-Paint system for at least a while.

Hey, look... Tiny image. Go figure.
*sigh*

I'll try that trick again with a .png file this time.
Hallelujah! That's a little better...

On the plus side of life, I have homemade pizza in progress for supper. At least there'll be one positive thing about my day!
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(ETA: *facepalm* I just realized there's an error in the top of the chart. *sigh* )

One warm hand, anyway...

Step by step, inch by inch...

Here's an inside view of the thrummy goodness. I pulled some of the fiber aside near the top of the mitten so the backside of the colorwork shows.
And.....


Ta-da! I finished the first mitten! And you'll notice I finally got that silly little millimeter smarter and knit the left hand first so I could take a picture without swearing at myself...
World's Warmest Mittens, how I do love thee!


And so, to celebrate, I cast on my next Selbuvotter project. After much dithering (with the emphasis on the much) I finally made a choice. Annemor #8 is officially underway.

Notice the yarn barf at the bottom of the picture. Argh...

And quick question: Anyone know why I can get nice big pictures from Flickr, but my Picasa pics are little bitty? Thanks!
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Another version of the World's Warmest Mittens

This is my latest mitten endeavor. I'm knitting thrummed colorwork mittens again, this time with a much simpler pattern.

This pair is for ME!! (Yeah, it's purple. What can I say...)

I started with my new favorite tubular cast on. (For a fabulous tutorial, go here. Tech-Knitting is the best site ever. I've been knitting for more than 40 years, and I still learn new and wonderful things on that site. Browse and enjoy!) Then I knit a nice long cuff to keep the wind out, then started a simple color pattern, with thrums at all the crossroads. You can see the thumb gusset on the top right.

Speaking of thrums, Knitting Daily is running a bunch of posts on thrums at this point, though I almost fritzed out when I saw their advice on "making thrums" - they were bringing the ends in to the middle of the thrum, making a loop at each end. Now why on earth would anyone want to purposely make a bunch of fingercatchers in their mittens!?!?! Not. Good. Advice.

If anyone expresses interest, I'll chart out the pattern for these.

What? My Day Off, and no Blizzard?!?

Unbelievable!
On the other hand, it was -20 when we got up this morning, and the temp climbed to almost 0 over the course of the day. And that's with no wind. Add a wind chill to a base of -20, and you get Very Scary Numbers indeed.
So I bundled up in lots and lots of layers, and headed out to the yarn shop. I held my breath as I approached the door, looking for signs saying "Closed." Nothing. A wave of relief as the door opened at my touch. The yarn was on the shelf, right where it should be - not sold out as I had dreaded. I grabbed and ran for the counter, pulling money from my pocket with glee.
Mission Accomplished! The Quest for the Holy Shepherd's Shades is over!
Now I can finish Madman's Christmas slippers. Oh Happy Day!

And, as long as I was in town, I had to hit the other yarn shop as well. I need a pair of World's Warmest Mittens, myself:


I'm not sure if the color is showing up very well - it's a deep purple. And, though I don't need anywhere near 4 ounces of roving to make the mittens, it doesn't hurt to have a little extra on hand, right?
Just in case it's snowing the next time I need roving....

The Good News and the Bad News

First, the Good News - The World's Warmest Mittens are done! Done! Done!
I worked out what I did wrong on the thumbs and fixed it. The ends are woven in, and they're ready to present to WGS.
Here's a closeup of the herringbone pattern, wonky handspun alpaca and all:
Recap:
Pattern: Elliphantom's Herringbone Mittens
Yarn: My handspun alpaca. The fleeces came from WGS's own alpacas.
Needles: size 4 DPN
Modifications: I knit a K1P1 ribbing cuff to help the mittens stay on. And the biggest mod is that I thrummed the pattern to make the mittens extra warm. (Thrums were also alpaca.)

I am so so so happy with how these turned out!


And now for the bad news... Well, first, some more good news - I've got a thumb done on the Selbuvotter gloves! I haven't finished weaving in ends, but happy progress has been made. Here are a couple of photos I took while wearing the glove. I stupidly finished the right one first, so had to take the pictures left-handed. And blind, since I couldn't hold my hand in the light and still see through the viewfinder... I took about 20 pics before I got any I could use. Though I got some fabulous shots of my wrist and my fingertips...


So, flush with this victory, I sat down to work on Thumb 2. I was happily knitting away, chatting occasionally with Madman, who was working on his plans for remodeling the chicken coop.
That little voice in the back of my head (You know the one. It always means trouble...) started going "Psst. Psst..."
I knitted harder.
"Psst!"
Crap. I sighed, and looked. And sighed.
When I got up and got the camera, Madman knew something was up. He gave me an inquiring look.
"They got me again!" I said.
"Oh, no! What now?"
"Take a look at the base of the thumbs..."


"Oh no! Does that mean you have to knit another one?"
"Absolutely not. I'm just going to pretend I don't see it."

These gloves are kicking my ass.

If I can think of anything for this post, I'll only have 10 to go...

When I decided to start a blog, I procrastinated for about 2 years before I actually got around to it. As a matter of fact, I thought I should name it "procrastiknitter", but it turned out someone was already using that name. (Clearly she didn't deserve it, since she hadn't procrastinated nearly long enough to be entitled to it... i.e. longer than me.)
My original intent was to post once or twice a week, maybe more often if the mood struck. Instead, I sometimes let weeks go by without a post. It wasn't that there was nothing to post about - I'd often think "oh, what great blog fodder!" over the course of the week, but wouldn't get around to actually planting my butt in the chair and making something of it.
When I signed myself for NaBloPoMo, I was hoping it would be enough of a kick in the aforementioned butt to get me in the habit of seeing bloggable and blogging.

I sure wish I had taken some notes between January and October...

The thrummed mittens are currently in time-out. I've knit the thumbs, but they don't match. I have no idea which one I screwed up... This, of course, is the only part of the pattern that all I had to do was follow it as written. *sigh*

I might be already kicking myself...

So, after shooting off my big mouth yesterday, here I sit, after a day where by 3pm my brains had turned to pudding and were leaking out my ears and I still had to hang in there till 5pm, trying to come up with a post.

The second thrummed Herringbone mitten is still in progress. It looks remarkably like the first one did at the same age, so not much point in photographing it. (And it's too dark anyway, by now.)
I've got the pinky and ring fingers of the second Selbu glove done, and am 'roaring' up the middle finger, but, again, it looks pretty much like the first one. (Actually, thank goodness for that similarity. See this post, if you haven't been following along at home.)
I finished the male-version of Rogue that I knit for Madman (meant for his birthday. In April. Of 2007. Oops.) but given that a) it's dark and b) he's notoriously camera-shy, I have no pic for that either.

I'm starting to worry that by the 15th of November I'll be reduced to telling about the time my little brother's (clandestine) pet garter snake escaped in the house.
And by the 25th, my post will consist solely of "Um. Ummm...."

Hopefully, something outrageous and/or ridiculous will happen to me between now and November 30th.

What are the odds?

Are we tired of WWM, yet?

I finished the first mitten, sans weaving in the last of the ends, and cast on the second one. Almost missed the beginning of the thumb gusset, but made a quick recovery. Frogging thrums is a messy business at best.


Someday my spinning will be better and more consistent, I hope. Until then, I just keep practicing.

I finished the pinky on the second Selbu glove.


And cast on a third. I'm shooting for a glove that will match the first one, but I admit I'll be happy as long as it matches either of them... Two half-pairs I can bear, but THREE half-pairs would probably send me right over the edge. I'll be watching this one with great paranoia...


A friend of ours gave us some elderberries. Not enough for a batch of wine (sigh...) but enough to make a lovely elderberry buckle:
Madman liked it a lot...

For some strange reason, every time I say elderberry buckle, I hear "Buckleberry Ferry" in the back of my head.

And, last but not least, the chickens are in molt. Every fall their old feathers fall out (the inside of the chicken coop looks like the site of a chicken explosion) and new feathers grow in. The transition stages make them look pretty pathetic. With most of their feathers gone, they end up looking like lizards. With goosebumps.
Last year, they molted in November - nothing sadder than seeing a bunch of cold, shivering, half-naked chickens.

Our poor rooster has lost most of his tail feathers. Lucky for him, he has a big enough ego to convince himself he's still the best looking rooster alive.
I don't have the heart to tell him that there are a dozen roosters in the coop next door that are all prettier than he is. And all better-natured than him, too. (He has turned mean in his "old-age" and attacks us on a too-regular basis.) One of them will be chosen to be his replacement...


The really sad part about the molt is that the chickens pretty much stop laying for a month or two. We've gone from 4 eggs a day to one every other day. Since we can sell as many as we can produce, this is not good news. In another month or two, the young hens will start laying, so at least we have that to look forward to.

World's Warmest Mittens, part 4

Flying along on the Alpaca Herringbone Mitten. Nothing like lazing on the couch with a mega-cold to get some knitting done.


I need to check the chart and make sure I haven't gone past the point where the decreases start... (Not that I've done anything like that before. Uhn-uh. Not me.)
As I'm knitting these, I'm also considering a matching hat. It would be easy to cobble the herringbone pattern into panels, with a plain brown column setting off each panel.

Would a thrummed hat be Over The Top?

World's Warmest Mittens, part 3

Work continues on the thrummed alpaca mittens, albeit slowly, since my wonderful Madman has shared his cold with me...
I managed to get a few more rows worked last night, between the hacking, sneezing, and nose-blowing...The pattern would show better if my spinning wasn't quite so lumpy. I'm still having a consistency problem, especially when I'm not spinning laceweight.
Peeling back the needles to give you a view of the inside:

I'm thrumming with the alpaca fleece, too, which is harder than using wool, since alpaca just doesn't have the "grab" that wool does. But I promised WGS alpaca mittens, and alpaca mittens she shall have.
And I finally puzzled out a way (the hard way, I'm sure. Story of my life.) to chart what I'm doing. This is a chunk of Elliphantom's chart, hand-drawn at great effort by yours truly. (Feel free to comment on my Mad Charting Skilz)

The main part is just plain two-color knitting. The orange dots represent where the thrums go. I wrap the stitch normally with the white yarn, but before I pull it through, I add the thrum, then pull both through together, completing the knit stitch. On the next row, I knit the white yarn and the thrum as if they were one strand, and give the thrum a little tug from the back side to make sure it seats itself.
These mittens end up being very warm - two-color knitting is warm in and of itself, just from the extra layers of the carried yarn. Adding in the soft cozy thrums makes them even warmer.

Now I'm going to go lay down on the couch for awhile. And cough. And maybe sneeze. And maybe knit some more.

And I decided that I just didn't have the heart to frog the glove. So now I have 1/2 of two pairs. Unfinished, of course...

*sigh*

World's Warmest Mittens, part 2

So, while I'm deciding what to do about the Selbu glove, I'll start the thrummed colorwork mittens I'm making for WGS. (Wicked Good Stepmother)
Once again, I'm using Elliphantom's gorgeous Herringbone Mittens pattern, with some mods.


First, I knit a full cuff in K1P1 ribbing - these mittens are for a woman who'll be wearing them to the barn to do chores. (Note: pigs steal mittens. They also steal hats. And untie shoelaces. Pigs have a very strange sense of humor...)
And now, let the thrumming begin!


As soon as I can figure out how to chart where the thrums go, I'll put up the chart. So far I'm completely inept...

World's warmest mittens

I made Elliphantom's wonderful Herringbone Mittens as a Christmas gift for my husband - with one major change... Notice how plump the mitten looks?

I thrummed it...

I'd been reading about thrummed mittens all over the place, but all of them seemed to be just rows of "dots" with the thrums showing up like the lice pattern in Scandinavian knitting. I wanted something a little more interesting to knit, so I add thrums to the charts, and came up with these.
I think they'll be the warmest mittens, ever. There's the warmth of the two-color knitting, plus all that fleece. Since Madman works outdoors a lot, warm is the way to go.

(And woohoo! Looks like I got the photos in the right place, and maybe the link will even work!!)


Update: I'm now working on another pair of these mittens - see my October '08 posts...