Thursday, December 31, 2009

Ram's Horn Mitten


Here it is at last - the Ram's Horn Mitten. When I first started designing it, I had all kinds of wonderful ideas for having a different colorwork pattern on the palm than on the back of the hand, and playing around with having the background color on one side become the foreground color on the other. Unfortunately when working on it, I decided that it looked unbalanced, so will have to save that idea for another mitten. Although the final design is more simple than I had originally envisioned, I am pleased with it, and it should be interesting for students.

The cuff is just knit 2/purl 2 rib. As with the Scandinavian Gauntlet Mitten, the thumb is a different pattern than the hand, and the thumb tip decreases are done to maintain the colorwork pattern. Both the thumb tip and the fingertip are finished by having the stitches drawn up tight, which looks neat when seen from the top of the tips.

This mitten is a good example of experimenting with Color Dominance. Whichever yarn is carried below the other, is pushed out while the other recedes. You can see what I mean where the cream color stitch line recedes between the thumb and hand.

This class is now open for enrollment at Spirit Work. Click on "Classes & Events", then click on my classes.

I'm also teaching an easier mitten class, Two Color Mittens. Students will have their choice of either Salt & Pepper or One on One Stripes. Both of these colorwork patterns are made of 1 stitch light and 1 stitch dark repeated around. Whether done in an even or an uneven number, determines which pattern is produced. The class handout includes directions for both mittens in a full range of sizes from small child to extra-large adult.

Currently I am finishing up the Snowstar Gauntlet Mitten, and will be posting about it with a photo. The mitten shaping is like the Scandinavian Gauntlet Mitten, but the Snowstar gauntlet is longer and has colorwork. Amazingly I thought the Snowstar would go slower and the Ram's Horn faster during the design process, but the opposite has turned out to be the case!

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