Late on Thanksgiving Day, less than 48 hours until my grandparents were to head back to the Czech Republic, my babička said she would love another pair of fingerless mitts in a lighter color. She has been wearing the black cable twist handwarmers that I made for her back in October a lot and thought another pair in a lighter color would go better with some of her clothes. I hope I am that fashion conscious in my 70s!
No worries, I thought. I would add this to my list of holiday knits (pretty short right now - February Lady Sweater for mom, hat for Pappy, and scarf for Jari) and just put it higher in the queue so I could ship it overseas in time for a pre-Christmas arrival. Well... then I got ambitious. While I was at work on Friday, I remembered the Queensland Collection Kathmandu DK yarn that I bought at Stitches. Perfect color based on my babička's description of what she wanted: neutrals, tan or brown, perhaps with some tweed for interest. And DK weight yarn knits up faster than fingering weight yarn. But then I thought, what pattern would I use? Hmmmm... And, more importantly, could I pull it off before they left for the airport? Maybe...
Much to my surprise, I did it!!! I didn't cast on until almost 8 PM on Friday night, but I stayed up until 1AM knitting away. At that point, I had 1.5 mitts done. I woke up at 8AM to finish up. By 10:30, I was getting dressed to deliver the mitts. Given that I took some breaks, I'm estimating that this was a 7 hour project.
Pattern: Improvised. Details below.
Yarn: Queensland Collection Kathmandu DK
Yardage: 1 skein = 147 yards
Needles: Size 5
Gauge: 20 stitches for 4 inches
I looked at some of the fingerless mitt patterns on Ravelry that use DK weight yarn. None of them were exactly what I wanted, so I improvised. Here's a quick and dirty version of my "pattern":
Left mitt:
- Cast on 43 stitches. Join for working in the round.
- *k2, p2* 7 times, k4, p1, k4, p2, k2, p2
- Con't in pattern for 3 rounds total.
- Forth round: con't in pattern, but instead of the k4, cable right over the first k4 stitches, and cable left over the second k4 stitches.
- Repeat the cables every 6th row after the initial cable cross.
- At approx. 6 inches, begin thumb gusset. (In my case on the 8th cable row.) K in pattern to the 21st stitch. Place marker. M1. Place marker. One stitch increased. 44 stitches. 1 thumb gusset stitch.
- Next round, con't in pattern. When you reach the first marker, sm, m1l, knit the stitch you made in the previous row, m1r, sm. Two stitches increased. 46 stitches. 3 thumb gusset stitches.
- Next round, con't in pattern, no increases.
- Next round, con't in pattern. When you reach the first marker, sm, m1l, knit the stitch you made in the previous row, m1r, sm. 48 stitches. 5 thumb gusset stitches.
- Next round, con't in pattern, no increases.
- Repeat these last 2 rounds until you have 13 thumb gusset stitches.
- Next round, knit to marker. Remove 1st marker. Place 13 thumb gusset stitches on scrap yarn. Remove second marker. Con't in pattern. 43 stitches on needles.
- Knit until mitts measure approximately 8.5-9 inches or your desired length. Bind off loosely in purl.
- Place the 13 thumb gusset stitches on two needles. Pick up 3 stitches for the back of the thumb. 16 stitches. Knit 3-6 rounds, depending on the length you desire. Bind off loosely in purl.
- Weave in ends.
I reversed the pattern for the right mitt so that the cable would be on the top of the hand. What I mean is that after casting on, I started my first round as follows: p2, k2, p2, k4, p1, k4, *p2, K2* 7 times. The thumb gusset stitches will be between created between the 22nd and 23rd stitches on the right mitt.
In other news this week, I did some holiday cooking and baking on Tuesday. Pumpkin pie from the CSA pumpkin that I boiled and froze in October, apple crumble (a modification of Jamie Oliver's recipe), and mashed turnips (my friend Jen and I had to use up all those CSA turnips that have been collecting in our fridges!). I don't have pictures of the pie or the crumble, but both turn out fabulously, even though I was a little stressed that the pies would be too runny after seeing the consistency of the batter.
But I do have pictures of the turnips. Jen, oh so clever Jen, suggested that we use the apple peeler/corer/slicer contraption to peel the turnips rather than peeling them by hand. We tried to take the "corer" part off the contraption, but neither of us were strong enough to turn the wing nut that held the corer part in place. The result: cored turnips! No matter, though. We mashed 'em in the end anyway!
Coring turnips!
Here are some of the turnips right before we boiled them with bay leaves and salt. Don't they look silly as curly qs with cores??
All this, not to mention work and Thanksgiving day with the family, and I managed to squeeze in 21.6 miles of running and 2 yoga sessions this week. A productive week overall. One more reason to be thankful!
Tomorrow, weather permitting, we're off to get the Christmas tree!
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