Full Steam Ahead!

Last weekend we went away up to Lincolnshire.We had a lovely weekend & stayed in a Travel Lodge room at Long Sutton. The staff were lovely but oh, how the room was so in need of a lick of paint!.Never mind, I was asleep most of the time when we were in it!
We saw a double Rainbow whilst we were driving around.I was so excited to see one. The skies are so big up there you could see both ends!Its a shame the second rainbow doesn't show up to well in the photo but it is there!

We went house hunting.
My life is about to change drastically!Mr T is due to retire from his job in March & we are about to put our lovely family home on the market & head into the future of unknown....Its quite scary really but also exciting.Technically he will be unemployed.As you can imagine ,so many worries go alongside that in this current climate.Its also time for me to do less hours at work.So with all that ,we are downsizing & hopefully will be almost mortgage free.Lets just hope we can sell our house.Fingers crossed.
Anyway , back to the weekend.I lost one of my lovely gloves I made using a green Zuberball. I was so annoyed with myself. We hunted all over where we had been & just couldn't find it. Luckily I had just enough yarn left to make another one. I have just sewn up the seam & so now will be back to having toasty hands.

My hands have been giving me a lot of pain during this colder weather we seem to be having.Apart from wearing gloves, does anyone have any good tips out there. The joints have been so painful.Its stopped me from knitting so much this week.
I snuck into town yesterday & treated myself to a few items.

The little girl always comes out in me when I shop for myself!Here they are. See if you can spot them in future posts. I am sure you will.
I also gave the dogs a haircut.

Phew ....what a busy week . Oh yes ,I was at work as well.
Have a great week & keep warm .

Colour stranded mittens using Artesano Inca Cloud Alpaca.

Although I have been knitting for years ,I have generally stuck to what I thought were simple patterns as I thought I wouldn't be able to do more "intricate" ones.

My thought process seems to have changed somewhat .I have realised that if you can cast on ,knit ,purl & cast off ,you have the basic tools & knowledge to attempt any pattern.I have along the way learnt tips to help with following these patterns.

A year ago I never thought I would attempt to make these mittens but here I am chatting about it.OK my first one was by no means perfect ,but having done that mitten without any instruction from someone & by trial & error ,my second one is coming along quite nicely & I feel happy with it.

The first time I ever did colour change in knitting I learnt how to do intarsia.This is where a motif is knitted in a background colour.To do this I found I needed to twist the two yarns together I was changing colour with or a hole would form.

With this stranded mitten ,becase the colour change occurs over few stitches ,there is no need to twist the yarn together.In fact you can see on the finished mitten which was the first one I made ,if you look at the cuff it looks untidy.This is due to the bobble that formed when I twisted the yarn together.I have not done this on the second one & you can see the result is much neater.I should have photographed the inside of the fabric but what you can actually see is just very small loops of yarn where I have carried the unworked colour across the back of the worked stitches.I only carry the yarn that is not being worked for a maximum of 3 stitches at a time.any more than that & a large loop will form which will catch on fingers etc.I makes also a lovely almost double type fabric which is very warm so ideal for mittens.

This pattern is a first of many.I have knitted mittens once before but only from a pattern & not straight from a chart.I have also never done the stranded colour change knitting before or set in a thumb or done Kitchener stitch.These were all firsts for me & although my knitting is far from perfect,I am pleased with the result.

I also found following the chart a challenge.My colour choice was very subtle which has made following the chart very closely rather than looking at the pattern emerging ,necessary.I have since purchased another ,deeper colour to go with the grey for a second pair of mittens.

To get around the eye boggling of following the chart I started with marking the pattern at the side of the row or round in this case ,with a pencil mark.This did get quite frustrating for me as ;

1) I kept forgetting to mark the round

2) I kept dropping my pencil & had to crawl around on the floor after it ,much to the delight of Mrs Magweed who proceeded to try & kiss me profusely & jump on my head as she thought I was playing.My back is still really bad so I needed her input like a hole in the head!!Bless her!!!

I found using a post it note was the best answer.I can stick it under the row /round I am currently working on & then move it up a line for the next working.No pencil to rub out on my pattern either.I can see the chart more clearly like this & I think it has helped to double my speed of knitting like this.

I love this Artesano yarn.It is such a good value yarn .I think I paid £3.50 for a 50g ball.It may have been £3.99 but hey who cares about a few pence.Its alpaca & lovely.My first mitten using yarn from two colours weighs only 27g.So you should be able to just get a pair of mittens out of one ball ,maybe slightly over.I am challenging myself to making 3 sets of mittens with the 3 balls of this Artesano Inca Cloud.

I am also using Brittany Birch needles.I was using my cheaper DPN's I got from Lidl when they were on special offer.To be honest ,I now think they were a bit of a false economy .I had trouble with the yarn splitting ,my hands ached & I also kept dropping the steel ones.I got so frustrated I went out & bought the Brittany ones & will not use anything else now.All those problems now no longer exist & how I am enjoying knitting these little babies!!

The pattern is a free one I found on Ravelry here.If you are not a member ,you can join for free & that allows you access to so much on the net.

Why did I put off making something like this for so long?Well I thought I wouldnt be able to do it!!I really wish now I had just got on with it.