Monday, March 24, 2008

Instant knitting gratification

So, in light of the failed fong, I decided I wanted to knit something that would be a little less work in the thinking department, and would be a quick little knit. Enter Fetching.

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Please forgive my wobbly hand. After I took the photo, I noticed that Dany had sneaked her way into the shot too!

I made them out of Berroco Alpaca; the same colourway that Adrienne used for her Bird in Hand mittens. Despite their relative straight-forwardness, I had a few 'huh?' moments, all of them coming when I was knitting my gauge swatch. In order to get the right gauge, I had to knit these on size 2 needles - a far cry from the size 6 ones that the pattern suggests. I was anticipating needing to use size 4's or something like that, but size 2?! The resulting wrist warmers fit me amazingly well though, but it makes me wonder if the gauge is listed correctly. I have unusually small hands, so if the fit is perfect for me, I wonder if they might be too small for other people.

The other thing is that the pattern says that there's just enough yarn to get a pair of wrist-warmers if you take apart the swatch. Since I got a yarn of similar length and weight, and managed to get gauge on the size 2's, I thought I'd be close to finishing the yarn. That wasn't the case at all. In fact, I could probably make one more pair from what I've got left.

I made some small modifications to the pattern too. In order to get more wrist coverage, I knitted two extra cables. I also added a few extra rounds to the thumb and to the straight body section of it. I'm not quite sure if I like the picot bind-off, but the end product doesn't look too bad, so it'll probably grow on me.

5 comments:

Knitted Gems said...

Your fetchings look great! I love the color you chose. It really shows off the cables.

Adrienne said...

Awesome Fetchings! I think that pattern is in my queue. They look really good knit out of the Ultra Alpaca (and I'll bet they're real warm, too!). With how cold it gets in the lab, maybe I should knit a pair for myself soon.

That's crazy that you had to go down so many needle sizes to get gauge -- are you an especially loose knitter?

The Ultra Alpaca is 100 g and comes 215 yard skeins, the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino that the pattern calls for has less than 100 yards per skein (and is presumably 50 g. Yet there isn't that much of a price differential per skein between the two yarns). Which is why you have so much yarn left over. I know this because I just used the Ultra Alpaca, and also because I've been mentally complaining for years about the yardage of Debbie Bliss yarns. =P

Adrienne said...

Hm, turns out that it's NOT one of the thousand fingerless mitts in my Ravelry queue. Off to correct that problem....

Rebecca said...

Hey - you've seen my Fetchings right? Of course, mine have the unique feature of being felted!

Yours look great!

Karen said...

Marie - Thanks! I'm really enjoying them.

Adrienne - Haha! I checked the weight, but not the length. No wonder I have to much left over. And, I'm not usually a particularly loose knitter. I was anticipating having to go to a size 5 instead of a 6, but to a 2?! That was just too weird. Anyhow, you'll enjoy this knit when you get to them.

Becky - I have! Your felted version looks awesome too!