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Winter Mitts Recipe - and a little dog learns that there's no food in the hand

Another Neighbourgoods Market come and gone - we all forgot our cameras this time, unfortunately.

Winter has truly arrived here, so I made scarves and fingerless mittens for the market. (I wore my own mittens at the last market, and people kept asking whether I sold them.) The mittens pretty much flew off the table. I took a bag of unfinished ones to sew up while I was there, and couldn't keep up. I couldn't even manage to have more than one finished pair on display at a time!

So in case anyone feels like making their own, here's the pattern:


As usual, it's more of a recipe than a pattern. It'll fit pretty much anyone - on Saturday I sold a pair to a little boy who couldn't have been more than 4 years old; they reached halfway up his arms, but they fitted! The finished mittens look small, but they're superstretchy. If you really need them to be bigger, add one or two stitches on at the sides.

Use any DK wool. Wool is better than synthetics for these, because they're knitted at a fairly loose gauge, so you need the superior insulating qualities of wool.

6mm straight needles for cast on and cast off, 5.5mm straights for the knitting.

Cast on 28 sts with 6 mm needles. Switch to 5.5 mms and knit 6 rows garter stitch.
Knit 2 rows stocking stitch, add in second colour. Don't break off the first colour, just carry it up the side of the knitting, twisting the 2 threads around each other when you change colours.

Knit 12 rows of stocking stitch altogether, in stripes of 2 rows (or whatever variation of this you like, obviously!) Edited to add: the one in the photo has 16 rows. Sorry!

Next row: Knit 13, make 1 (by picking up the bar between stitches with the left needle, and knitting it through the back - called m1), knit 2 sts, m1, knit to end.
Next row: Purl
Next row: Knit 13, m1, knit 4, m1, knit to end.
Next row: Purl

Continue the thumb gusset in this way until it's 10 sts wide (8 rows in total - 8 sts have been made).

Next row: Knit 13, cast off 10sts, knit to end.
Next row: Purl to end

Stocking stitch 4 more rows, continuing the stripe pattern.

Break off second colour, knot it to first and keep knitting - I'm sure there's a more elegant way to do this, but nothing wrong with this.

Garter stitch 3 rows.
You should have the wrong side facing you; cast off knitwise with a 6 mm needle. Break off yarn, leaving a long enough tail to sew up the glove (one and a half times the length of the knitting will do it).

Sew up the seam using mattress stitch. There's a good tutorial from Knitty here, and a google search shows millions more....

(...which brings me to a very important lesson about following knitting patterns: GOOGLE IT. Somewhere someone has struggled with the very technique you're struggling with, and being a knitter, once they figured it out they had to share it. Trust me, someone's written a tutorial for magic loop, invisible cast-on, kitchener stitch, 6 kinds of buttonholes... it's all there.)

Now make another mitten to match, and enjoy the cold weather!

Useful

There's no date on this, but the style of some of the garments inside, as well as the phrase 'Hospital Comforts for our soldiers and sailors' suggests World War One. There are several intriguing things inside, like patterns for balaclava's with earflaps, no doubt so that the wearer can hear commands on the field telephone, and body belts to warm the kidneys. I draw the line at 'Wither Pads for Horses' though.

'Useful Laces for Towel Ends' was more promising - turns out that crochet edgings done in DK wool make great scarves. They have a lovely weight and drape, and are so warm!


Please excuse the open-mouthed shots! All I had was a small mirror and lots of concentration.

Flat Scarves on Flickr

I've posted some photos of the scarves laid flat here.

On Display!

Satisfaction

Huge teetering piles of Things To Do surround me, and I feel nothing like this picture. But I'm reasoning that I drew it, so I must know that feeling, and therefore I can trust that it will return soon!

Chapter 3

It just goes on and on....

Mrs Eliot

I've been visiting mrs eliot books regularly since I first discovered the Etsy shop where Francesca sells her unusual books. This image stopped me in my tracks. Perhaps it's the combination of the words 'knitting-needles' and 'midnight', perhaps it's the lovely sense of space, but I can't stop looking at it.


Go over there right now and look for yourself!

Downtown

Walking in town this morning, I saw a girl crocheting a poncho. How did I know it was a poncho she was making? She was already wearing it!

Prints in shop

I've just added some screenprints to my shop. These are the full versions of the cut-up notecards; the background colour is far brighter in these, more gold than brown.

Finally getting somewhere...

Tweaking the Knitting

Cut Up

After printing a run of posters, I realised I wasn't completely happy with the background colour. But it's a shame to waste all that lovely silkscreeny texture, so I cut them up into notecards. I like the way some of them become tiny landscapes, and others abstract compositions.

They're on sale in my shop.

Scary, yet snuggly

The temperature's dropping here, especially at night. Hot water bottles are essential, but they need covers to make them huggable. This one's from Sarah Dallas's Knitting. Nowhere near as pretty as the one in the book, which is a very serene lavender colour....

Thought I'd emphasize the brightness by photographing it on the most contrasting surface I could find, my un-ironed duvet cover.

And here it is looking strangely tortoise-like on my bed. (The cushion in the background is one of a set I painted.)


Despite all my minimalist ambitions, this is a bizarrely colourful and madly patterned house most of the time.

Cutting It Fine

Trawling through other bloggers' links lists is one of my favourite occupations, and that's how I found How about orange... (via Skinny laMinx) and this post about kirigami.

I got a kirigami calendar about 2 years ago; I've been working my way through it slowly, sticking the results up on the cupboard in my studio. Initially I wanted to be terrribly restrained and elegant about the placement of the cutouts, but it was all too much fun and the colours got the better of me.


Other things I did this weekend: all of Sunday was spent making a curtain. Just one.
In my defence, this curtain is lined and has a casing at the hem to thread a light chain through for weight. And tags on the inside to tie the chain in place.

On Saturday I wrote a comic about 2 pieces of toast talking to each other.

Things may be starting to happen in the world of the knitting comic, too:

Finished Objects

The hat is from Kate Gilbert's Peapod set (the jacket is still waiting for buttons), knitted in Pingouin DK Pure New Wool. The blanket is made in the same DK wool, just a ripple pattern on a 4mm hook. Not sure what exactly the baby is made from, she's not mine, but I do think she's warm enough now!

And here's a baby's-eye-view of the blanket:

Knitting in a Comic! Chapter 2, Part 1

The first of a series of small paintings goes on sale in my shop today. I'll add more over the next few days.

Mixed Media

Some months ago, when the sun was still shining brightly, photographer Damon Hyland and I collaborated on a project combining photographs and illustration. At the top, the finished product, and below it, my initial scribbles.

The bottom drawings are pen and ink scribbles on lo-res printouts; the top ones, gouache painted onto glossy prints. I realised that drawing with ink wouldn't necessarily work well on a glossy finish, and was delighted to find that gouache seems to be made for this job!

You can see bigger versions of the finished pics in my portfolio.

Have a look at Damon's portfolio here to see more of his work.

We've had a load of public holidays this past week, including a long weekend that coincided with the monthly stint at the Neighbourgoods Market. Heather's written a great post about the market here, with photos of some of the other vendors that are worth a look.

There's also a pic of me in my Jess jacket (yes, that's really what it's called) made from an Amelia Raitte pattern.