Scarf & Mitts

This morning I finished mitts for K. They go with a scarf I made late last winter, shortly after receiving my Knitting Page-A-Day calendar. There was a neat pattern for a linen stitch scarf. K had some personally chosen variegated yarn in my stash, so I knit the scarf up very quickly. Linen stitch is great - you only have to knit half the stitches in each row!



Linen stitch give an almost woven look to the right side of your work. The back looks somewhat like seed stitch. I like how the colour pools and flows yet is still distinct.
When it came to the mitts, it only made sense that the stitch pattern should match that of the scarf. Not so simple as the scarf. I only mangled the project a few times. And I did have to knit an extra mitten. My first attempt was too small. I was unsure of the gauge due to my stitch selection. Sure enough, it was off. The first mitten turned out to be a 'hand girdle'. Once I stressed and obsessed my way through the first correctly sized mitten, the second knit to finished in about 4 hours. Hm...I'm not sure if that's fast or not. It was certainly faster than the first mitten.

I am a fairly rookie knitter...if I choose my pattern carefully, I can fake talent. My inexperience certainly shows in these mittens. Completing the thumb was most difficult while maintaining the stitch pattern. I did a bit of darning where the extra stitches are to be picked up when knitting the thumb. I have not mastered perfect thumbs by any means. The result is wearable, or so K tells me. She seems quite happy with the results.