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.

.

Knitting Bag Four

And more from the knitting bag collection.

(Hmmm. I'm starting to think my DH might be right not be entirely mistaken when he says that there are a lot of knitting bags around the house!)



I really love this one. It's a smallish tote that I got in Penny's for oh, I dunno, 3 euro or something like that. I got several others as gifts for some young ladies that I know. The fabrics are great, and fully lined etc. Of course I got several more for myself as future gifts to others.

On the windowsill here are 2 balls of Sublime Mohair in pale green and duck egg blue for some elbow-length Ms Potters. Also, front of pic, is a ball of Rowan Calmer which I'm carrying around for inspiration.

And looksee! It was only afterwards that I realised that these yarns are almost exactly the same colour as the flower motifs on the bag!

(Sorry about all the exclamation marks*, but I got unreasonably excited about this.)

Yay, dontcha love it?

There's only 1 problem with this bag.

See this?



Oh horrors! The knitters enemy.

VELCRO!

So now I keep the stuff inside this knitting bag inside other bags, inside.

Well, it's not like I can have too many.


* or as Little Monkey calls 'em, 'explanation marks'.
.


.

DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMMIT!

There's no easy way to say this folks, so I'll just spit it out.

Or maybe I'll just spit!

I've always wondered how typos occur in published knitting patterns.
I mean, surely they're checked and proofread very carefully?

The answer is Human Error. Specifically, MY human error.

It breaks my heart that there's a significant typo in the pattern for Ms Pottern Mittens as published in Yarn Forward Magazine - in the text as provided by me in the 1st instance. I cannot BEAR to think of the poor knitters struggling witih incomprehensible instructions and cursing me and the horse I rode in on.

I've been that knitter. We've all been that knitter.

Basically the instructions for the thumb gusset places the gusset between the 1st and the 2nd dpns in every odd round and between the 2nd and 3rd dpns in even rounds. Can you IMAGINE the confusion? The instructions for K13 and K26 in the even rounds need to be transposed. There are some other typos too, but not as serious as this one.

Kerrie (who publishes the magazine) was very kind about it, which I really appreciate. It happens apparantly, but I feel TERRIBLE about it and apologise most deeply and sincerely to anyone effected.
Errata will be published on the magazine website and included with future copies of the magazine.

The magazine is lovely, by the way. Great production values, clear layout and some good articles etc. The photos of the mittens are terrific and I was sooooo proud of the pattern. It just kills me to think of the pain in store for the unsuspecting knitter. Arrrrgh!

If anyone has any questions on the pattern or any other issues, please email me at Nicknits AT gmail DOT com. I'll publish errata here shortly.

All I can do is fall on my needles and beg the mercy of the court.

.

Wow!

OHMIGOSH!!
I went looking for the new Magknits this morning to see Lien's new pattern. (Congratulations Lien it's gorgeous!) It's a really great Magknits issue, check it out.

However, that's not the OHMIGOSH moment, oh no.

On the way to Magknits I found this!


Those are MY Ms Potter Mittens on the cover.

I'm not going to pretend to be all cool about it. How proud am I? Wow.

Thanks Kerrie and Yarn Forward. And thanks TIK for the Rowan Tapestry!

I wasn't expecting these to be published for a couple of weeks yet so this was a nice surprise. For those of you who know me, this is hard to believe, but I'm kinda speechless.

For now anyway.

.