Dear Diary,
In a fit of knitting madness last year, I had the grand idea to dive right into colourwork knitting. I can’t remember why I thought that it would be a good project at the time, but nothing apart from the ‘need’ to drastically pare down my yarn stash really comes to mind.
In hindsight, I’m kinda happy that I did. While I did considerably reduce the leftovers from the 1st Moonglow Desert Rose colour kit, I also finished a WIP that was sitting in my ‘in progress’ pile for much longer than it should have.
The pattern was pulled together from a bunch of cards from Pacific Knit Co’s Doodle Card Decks – namely their Basic and Spring packs. The beauty of the card decks is that they’re essentially a ‘build your own adventure’ approach to drafting your own patterns.
As for the yarn, I used the leftovers from the shawl that I made using Moonglow Yarn Co’s Desert Rose Colur Kit. I honestly felt like I was playing yarn chicken for the entirety of the project. Mind you, this was my first attempt at proper colourwork, so I had no idea how much of each colour I was going to need. But I ended up having enough leftover from each of the 5 colours to make another pair, if I felt like it.
The actual making of the mittens was a process. I initially cast on 48 stitches, thinking that it would result in a comfortable fit. Spoiler: it didn’t. So I increased the cast on stitches for a few iterations, until I got to 64 stitches. Which resulted in, not only a comfortable fit with all of the colourwork, but also 2 full repeats of the pattern that I had come up with.
All of the cuffs were done in 1×1 ribbing. For some reason, 1×1 ribs (when done with a ‘regular’ knit stitch) look a little looser than they ought to be. Perhaps I should try switching out the regular knit stitch for a backloop next time I need to do a 1×1 rib.
I did all of the binding off using tubular bind off because I love it so much! Honestly, the resulting edge looks incredibly smooth and pretty. Even more so if one pairs it with a tubular cast on for the bottom cuff. Which I didn’t do for this pair.
This was also one of the few instances where I actually blocked my finished object. Largely because I entered it in the 2024 Sydney Royal Easter Show’s Knitting Competetion – Adult Knitted Accesories. Yep. I’m entering my very first knitting competition in 2024.
Love from,
Anna