While my momentum is actually here, I am thinking about my next project. Knitty’s all-men issue has an awesome pair of mittens–the manly mitts. I’m no stranger to stranded knitting (someday I’ll post the photo of the Christmas stocking I made last winter), and I’ve been wanting new mittens. I still really like my double-thick mittens, but they are falling apart, and I’d like to try making a new type, anyway. (New challenges and all that.)
I finished it! You’ll notice that the ends on the straps are not woven in; I decided to leave them all long and then if it’s too long or too short Mom can then either change it herself (nice gift I’m giving, huh!) or I can fix it later. Either way, I need the extra ribbon there so that I don’t have to attach a new end or anything.
Last night I finally got myself to knit again, and I knit up the whole right front. And then, about two rows from the end of the decreasing, I realized that there were too many stitches on the needles, because I’d forgotten about those initial two rows, in which you k2tog at the beginning and end of one of them! Argh! So I pulled it all out, hence the going down. The knitting of this part takes only about 20 minutes, so it wasn’t so much time lost, but still, it was irritating. I’m now back up, and I’m nearly finished with the right front (probably only four more rows before I work 2 inches of strap).
I finished the left front of the X-back, and have simply stalled out. I’m bored! I don’t want to knit! It’s hot, I’ve been going to the gym a lot, and by the time I’m done with dinner I’m not much in the mood to do anything. Once I get myself back on track, however, it should be no problem to finish.
The only forseeable problem is going to be estimating the straps without having my mom try the top on. I want to present her with a finished product, but I also want it to fit right. I think I’ll make my best guess but won’t totally finish it off (I’ll do the bindoff but I’ll leave long tails hanging). That way I can further tweak it if necessary. Maybe I’ll err on the side of too long so that I won’t have to worry about needing more ribbon.
I finally started knitting the x-back for my mom last night, after a complete knitting hiatus. I took out most of what I’d started already, leaving one ball’s worth knitted up to deal with later. So, a few details:
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