The mitten pattern is from Magnificent Mittens and Socks by Anna Zilboorg. Ms. Zilboorg’s writing style reminds me of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s take-no-nonsense from the knitting style. I found her instructions and tips both clear and empowering.
My first stab at following the chart was a bust. I pulled it out before I thought to take a picture of it. I saw that I wasn’t developing the ridge across the top of the mitten and the pattern was looking really wonky.
My second try went wrong in a slightly different way. The pattern was still not developing properly and I really hated my color combination. Managing the floats wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. I ended up using a two-handed method for managing the yarns. I knitted the background yarn continental style and knitted the contrast color yarn English style. The two-handed method kept the yarns separate. No more stopping every round or two to untangle them. This is what it looked like:
The toughest thing for me was deciding the color balance. I ordered 4 colors of Palette: Silver, Mist, Black and Ash. When I do another Fair Isle project, I’m going to give myself more options within my color pallet. When I knitted Silver and Mist into my first mitten, they were so similar I couldn’t see the pattern and the black was way too strong.The other thing I didn't like was that next to the black, the silver yarn read as white, very stark.
It took a few tries, but I finally found a color combination that I liked: the background color is Mist and the contrast colors are Black and Ash. The pallet’s very wintry and, being a subway rat, I appreciate that the colors will hide the dirt.
I eventually started the mittens over a total of 9 times, but each time the cast on became easier. I didn’t realize the mittens in the book were knit from tip to cuff until I started my mitten. The upside is that now I’m totally ready to knit a pair of toe up socks its the same technique.
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