WIP Wednesday - Knitty Startitis Extravaganza!

Have you seen the new knitty yet?

So many lovely patterns!! I followed the link from Laura Chau's blog (she made the lovely Darrin cardi pattern)and immediately queued a whole bunch of them. Then I cast on two :)



First of all I cast on the Lingerie socks out of Patons Fairytale Dreamtime 3ply wool. I went up to 2.5mm needles because I think the 2mm called for would be far too tight around my cankles, even if it is ribbed lace :) I've knit the top of the cuff so far, so down to where the ribbed portion begins. It looks very cute so far :)



Then I cast on the Commuter mitts out of Sirdar Click yarn. I tried it on 3.75mm needles first, but my gauge was too tight - I was getting 24 sts to 4 inches instead of 21. So I went up to 4.5mm needles, and all seems well now :) I love the folded over cuff on these mitts, can't wait to have these on my hands!



I also cast on another pattern, although this isn't a knitty pattern - the Something Floral mitts by Miranda Grant. I'm using stash yarns for these, but I don't know what the yarn is. The ball bands disappeared long ago! These are knitting up nicely, although not as nicely as they would if they were in my handspun (I'm totally spoiled now as far as colourwork mittens are concerned! They'll never be the same again!)

I knit a few more rows on my Willow scarf this week, and finished my afterthought socks, which I'll write about in another post, so I have a feeling I'll be casting on more of them this week. Also, I have a severe case of startitis in case you couldn't tell. I'm itching to cast on Dunes from the new knitty. I'm trying to hold off till my willow scarf is done, but I don't know how long I'll be able to hold out :) Also, I'm looking at my stash wanting to cast on cowls and socks by the dozen.

Other patterns from the new knitty that I'm drooling over are Rhodian, Darrin, Leaflet, Undercurrent, Chasing Snakes, Double Heelix and Inlay. Half the patterns in this issue, basically! And if there were any little girls around me to knit for, then I'd be casting on Kindling right now! So cute!!

Add to that my massive ravelry queue, and I'm feeling very inspired to cast on bajillions of projects just now. It's lots of fun! :D

FO: Galileo Mittens

My very first ever project knitted with my own handspun!!!



Pattern: Galileo Mittens by Laura Chau
Yarn: My own handspun :D Corridale, orange and black spun into a heavy fingering weight

I love these mittens!! Ever since I first saw the pattern come up on ravelry, I've wanted to make them. I was going to use my pink handspun as the contrast colour, but it turned out too thin, as I've blogged, so I spun up some orange that I had left over from another spinning project, and deliberately tried to make it the same size as the black. This was my first spinning project intentionally spinning my yarn to a certain size, and it turned out pretty good!



I really loved knitting with my handspun. I would have written "enjoyed" there, to break up the monotony of the word "loved" which I've used about ten million times in regard to this project, but that really is how I feel about it. I didn't just enjoy knitting with it, I really, really loved it! I kept saying to my partner about how I was knitting with yarn that I had made, and that I'd actually made knitable yarn that I liked. It got to the point where he was fed up hearing about it :D

It turns out that I really like my yarn to be tightly spun and plied. It had never even occured to me before, but it turns out that I naturally spin yarn how I like to knit it. How awesome is that?! There was no splitting, none of the twist fell out as I was knitting with it, as has happened with some commercial yarns. And not just the cheap acrylics!

I just can't get over that I spun the yarn, and then knit it into these mittens! I'm already spinning for another pair of mittens - I'm going to have quite a handspun mitten collection at this rate. The only thing is that spinning on a drop spindle is quite slow, so it'll take me a bit of time to get enough yarn to make a pair of mittens, but I'm knitting some colourwork fingerless mitts out of commercial yarn in the meantime. It's just not the same now though! I've been totally spoiled!



I think what I really like about this pattern is the (almost)random/abstract-ness of the design. Geometric repeating patterns are good, but this pattern looks so different that it was the first pattern I thought of when I decided to knit mittens out of my handspun. Not that that stopped me from queuing loads of others for the future! :D They fit really well too, the first pair of mittens I've knit where the fit is just perfect and not too tight or anything.



The pattern knit up really well, no errors or anything, and I really like how it was explained and written out. Laura's an excellent designer, one of my favourites - I really must knit more of her patterns. I have a major desire to knit the Cityscape pullover - a larger handspun project, perhaps? ;)

I think I will definitely knit these again. I just love the pattern (there's that word again, but it's true!) and I had a lot of fun making them. Now if only December would hurry up and arrive so I could wear them outside!! :D