This weekend I decided to knit Hello Yarn's Fiddlehead Mittens. I love colourwork patterned mittens like this! In Montreal we get a long, cold winters which are made a slight bit easier to take by the fact that we have months and months where we get to sport cozy mittens. So why not make that essential mitten wearing fun!? The prettier the mittens, the more pleasurable they are to wear, or at least that's how I feel about it.
I had planned on making these mitts for me. I was totally going to buy a kit off of the Hello Yarn website, but she's taking a break from making them, so I had to find another solution. I loved the pattern and had seen them knit with kureyon as the contrasting colour on Ravelry, and since I have a bag of leftover Kureyon ends from my Lizard Ridge Afghan I thought I'd knit them that way. I still have a bag of Kureyon leftovers under my day-bed, but I'm saving them for more fun projects like this. By adding a bit of kureyon to a project involving other leftover yarns, stash-busting immediately becomes a lot more enjoyable! So, here are the mittens:
I used Patons Classic Merino Wool in Natural Mix as the background colour. I love that wool in that colour, it's so wool-like, it feels like it would have come off the sheep exactly that colour, so natural and hearty. It's probably one of my favorite yarns ever. I used the leftover's from my Must Have Cardigan, so this was a real economical project. The patterns calls for dk weight yarn, but seeing as how I'd seen it done in worsted on ravelry I thought I'd give it a try. I knit it on 3.25mm needles and followed the size for the smallest version, but because of the gauge of the yarn I suspect I got a much larger result then I had wanted. On me, they fit more like oven mitts!
I prefer my mittens to fit a bit on the snug side, so unfortunately, I've had to gift these mittens over to Chris. He's a great sport and will wear almost any colour in hand-knit gifts from me. He's got purple socks, yellow socks, Blue Moon Fiber Arts multicoloured striped socks, and now, he's got pretty mittens, and while the pattern isn't necessarily un-masculine, the first mitt I knit featured exclusively pink and purple kureyon, but he still loves them. I had intended that the mitts be a fraternal pair, so to compensate for the girly colours of the first mitt, I knit the second one in a decidedly more boyish combination of blues and browns. I think they're both lovely! The pattern was a quick and fun knit, and I'll definitely attempt a second (smaller) pair in a thinner yarn at some point.
The pattern calls for the mittens to be lined, but I've opted not to do that since the heavier yarn makes for a very sturdy and warm mitt as it is. The pattern also calls for an I-cord cast on, which I had never attempted before (I almost exclusively use long-tail cast on, it's how I first learnt.) but I'm now in love with the I-cord cast on! It's so clean looking! And though it takes way longer then my beloved long-tail, it's so worth it because of the beautiful finished look it adds. I'm a convert, for certain projects at least. It was really neat to lear something new. And I realize the middle of a heat wave in June is an odd time to be knitting mittens, but I'm not really in to summer knits, so in the summer, I just suck it up, sweat through the heavy knitting, and rejoice when fall rolls around and I can enjoy all that hard work!
