Practice

I knit a fingerless mitt this weekend. It's a practice mitt; it's never going to be worn in the real world, and that's okay. I like it enough to knit two more, now that I've got it all figured out. Here's what happened.

I checked Veronik Avery's lovely book, Knitting 24/7, out of the library on Saturday, and instantly decided I needed a pair of Redwork Mitts. I even have leftover red and white sock yarn, so casting on immediately was not a problem. The cuff is garter stitch on straight needles with four buttonholes, easy peasy, and her method of joining this little swath of garter stitch into a circle for knitting the rest of the mitt in the round is ingenious. I got that far with no problem.

And then we hit the Gull Wing portion of the mitt. I had some trouble with the Gull Wing pattern. I was following the directions, technically, and thinking "what in the hell?!" with practically every stitch, it just made no sense. But I plowed forward, because the mitts in the picture were so pretty that I was determined to have them.

Then, during the third pattern round, I had a moment of abject clarity, omg I see what u did there, and it clicked. I suddenly realized exactly what the pattern was doing, and how those pretty little v's were supposed to be made, and so my third round of v's looked a little better than my first two rounds, which were a nightmare to behold. And my fourth round of v's looked much, much better than the third, and from there it was smooth sailing. I decided not to rip back and fix the first two pattern rounds; they would stand as a testament to my determination and tenacity. (Also laziness.)

But soon I began to think, "These are going to be a bit big." I talked myself down from there, because of course they weren't! I was getting gauge! I was knitting the 7-and-a-half-inches-around-the-knuckles size, which happens to be my own personal measurement! A bit big. Ha.

Do I even have to say it?

It's a bit big. And the funniest part is this: I was not getting gauge. The recommended gauge was 7.25 stitches to the inch, and I was getting 8 stitches to the inch. That's right, I was getting a considerably smaller gauge than recommended, and it's still too big.

But look at this beauty.


Isn't it great? I'm going to cast on again, the 7-inch size this time, and I'm considering going down a needle size. Or not; I would really rather the next one not be too small. That might be more than I could bear. I am, though, really glad that I decided not to rip back and fix the first two pattern rounds of this one - if I'd done that and it still hadn't turned out right, I might be feeling too much despair now to try again. This was a practice mitt. And now, I move on to the real thing. Stay tuned.