So what else?

So....when I ran out of leaves and petals to knit I started to panic! Housebound with 2 kids on a wet holiday with no knitting?

NoOOOOOOO!



Luckily I also packed 2 balls of Kidsilk Aura which I got in the recent sale at TIK. It's a luscious dark purple berry colour (Loganberry - 793), just CRYING OUT to be a pair of Ms Potters. Crying out I tell you. There was definitely crying.

However....and I really don't know how to admit this.....when it came to it, I just couldn't remember the stitch pattern. I mean specifically how to do the DD which forms the ridge up the mitten and balances the 2 yarnovers forming the lacey bits. Just couldn't remember it! Gosh-darn-it!

I tried all sorts of variations (except the right one of course) and after 2 days of frustration, I gave up. I even thought about phoning a knitting friend at home to read me all the variations of the DD instructions she could find until we stumbled on the correct one - but the lack of phone coverage and the need to supervise children jumping on cliffs made this impractical.

Eventually I started to think about how to make a Ms Potter without the lace-and-decrease details. A knitted tube would be easy enough, but it might have to have something else to create the same pull-in-and-cling effect. Especially to counter-act the floaty-hardly-there effect of the Kidsilk.

I came up with a 2 x 1 rib pattern which would do the job. If you look closely, concentrate (and take many hallucinogenics), you might be able to see the double-row of knit stitches in the rib down the back of the hand. This occurred at the joins betweens the dpns. Anyway, I think a little row of small elegant buttons along this rib at the wrist would be just delightful.



I did start off with an alternative lace pattern (a kinda chevron thing) but after 2 repeats I dropped it....since it couldn't really be seen amidst the luscious cosiness of the Kidsilk Aura. It's visible in this pic only with the application of an unreasonable amount of stretch.



Frankly, I don't think the Kidsilk is a good yarn for this kind of project. I prefer to see stitch detail rather than general furriness. However, they are lovely and soft, very warm and the colour is stellar so they'll make an ideal gift for a friend of mine who likes this sort of thing more than me.

I mean, she likes the mittens more than I like them. Not that she likes the mittens more than she likes me. Or who knows. Perhaps she does? Never mind....too complicated for me, I'm orff to the next project.

See you around.

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