Thursday, January 26, 2012

Mitten distress

I am done with my mittens. Yeah!...??? I looked into felting and learned you need hot water and agitation to felt. So I can't felt my mittens just using them in snow. I realized that if I really wanted to felt them I would have to make them 2-3 times larger than they are. I saw an example in the yarn store and I was shocked. The unfelted mitten really was 2-3 times larger and the felted one was normal size. These are work mittens. I'm afraid to felt them for fear they would be to small to wear. I thought about ripping them out and making something else. My knitting is so bad, I have these awful seams (for lack of a better word) running all over the place. I have holes and gaps around the thumbs. The ribbing on both mittens look different. I am glad that I figured out I can do ribbing-if only on straight needles.

I am concerned they won't be warm if they aren't felted. But the gansey sweaters-In Ireland, Scotland and England women would knit their men fancy intricate sweaters. The men would wear them as they fished and they would get wet but because of the wool and tight knitted construction it kept them warm. Here's a link to the history of gansey sweaters if you are interested: http://www.flamboroughmanor.co.uk/pdf/FMCataloguePDF.pdf

I really want to work on something else so I will keep these, use them and see how they are. Maybe I will be surprised. Come on snow, I'm ready for ya!

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