Halland Mittens

LATVIAN MITTENS

As you can probably tell I love to knit mittens. By far the most gorgeous mittens I've ever seen are Latvian mittens. Apparently Latvians share my obsession with mittens - they have mitten poetry, wedding mittens, funeral mittens, etc. And exactly why would anyone need wedding mittens? Do they get married outside in winter?? This wonderful web site discusses the history of mittens in Latvia with some nice photos. I guess there was even a tradition of giving a pair of mittens to the blacksmith when you had your horse shod for the first time!

HERE is a photo of Saartje's Latvian mittens. And HERE is a photo of Geane Helfrich's Latvian mittens. And if you want to buy some gorgeous Latvian wool mittens for less than the price of buying wool to make them, check out the crafts section of the Baltic Shop.

I have the Latvian Mitten book by Lizbeth Upitis but have never made any of her beautiful designs. In the meantime, here are the Halland mittens from Folk Mittens in Nature Spun worsted with a few changes.



Robin asked on my tag board about the difference between Cascade 220 and Nature Spun worsted. Nature Spun Worsted is cheaper and *can* pill a lot. On the Norgeknit mailing list we've discussed pilling and Nature Spun. I've had experiences either way with it - sometimes it pills more and sometimes less than other yarns. The Halland mittens in Nature Spun worsted are definitely pilling. Cascade 220 comes in such gorgeous colors but I don't know how well it wears.

When thinking of my efforts at stash control I realized I am not as good about using up unspun fibers. A few months ago I did some Kool Aid dyeing and I have some red and orange merino top ready to spin pictured above. Not to mention this wonderful stuff below. It is a selection of all different colors of dyed Ashford wool from Halcyon Yarn that I've had for several years. I plan to spin each color up and Navajo ply it. Perhaps if I choose a knitting project using it I'd get it done faster?







I do spin more in warmer weather and it has been snowy and cold lately. But I think I'd get more done if I designated a particular time of day or particular event (like watching rented movies) that will coincide with spinning. A friend of mine recently learned needle felting so I was happy to give her the rest of my raw fleeces. I don't really like working with raw fleeces anymore as carding is too tough on my wrists.



In the unspun category I have the pictured fibers, the alpaca, some llama top, kid mohair, and a few dribbles of silk and hemp. I also have some cotton sliver, both white and some natural colors but I'm not adept enough at spinning cotton yet. Plus I have a Rubbermaid container full of collected pet fur I should probably use or get rid of before our next move.



And I forgot to mention I have two grab bags of Cascade 220 I purchased from One Fine Yarn in my worsted yarn container. Great colors - I used some hot pink, orange, lime greeen and blue to make some of Anna Zilboorg's fingertip-up gauntlet mittens. Didn't manage to get a photo before I gave them away so I guess I should make another pair.

I know most knitters feel otherwise but I'm not comfortable with a gargantuan stash of yarn. I currently have four large 54 quart Rubbermaid containers and one smaller container of yarn which is too much.



Container number one is for worsted yarns which I don't knit with much anymore, mainly a mishmash and a small collection of Classic Elite Tapestry. I'm mainly keeping this container of yarns if I ever teach knitting to kids.



Number two has a large quantity of Nylamb - an old Brunswick fingering weight sock yarn that is quite soft and lovely. In fact, I have enough Nylamb in a dark green color to make either Nova Scotia or Cape Cod in Alice Starmore's Fishermen's Sweaters book. I just haven't decided which one yet.



Container number three contains my sport weight yarns - mainly Nature Spun in as many colors as possible and a bag of some Norwegian sport weight wool in bright colors purchased from Elann.



Container number four contains my sock and fingering weight yarns. I have a bag of Stahl Baby Merino also purchased from Elann several years ago, a good quantity of Wildfoote for socks, a big bag of Pingouin Laine sock yarn from Elann in relatively boring colors and some odds and ends like fingering weight cotton for dishcloths.



And the smaller container holds my DK weight yarns. I'm trying to build up my collection of Emu Superwash DK from Elann in as many colors as possible and I also have some Country Garden DK in colors from Smiley's Yarns that don't really turn me on. I also have a sweater's worth of Tiur for a future project - the Dale of Norway Kashmir sweater. And I have a few baskets of leftovers and handspun which I'll use to make more Spontaneous Scarves.



My recent efforts at stash busting have made me realize I work better with less yarn and less clutter. I do prefer quiet and order to total chaos on the yarn front plus it really helps with all the moving we do. One of my goals is to reduce my total stash to just those four containers.



I have my knitting books organized by subject and my patterns are filed the same way. Straight needles are kept in an old tin, circular needles are kept in pencil cases and here's a photo of my double pointed needles, crochet hooks and cable needles organized nicely in a circular solution container. Before I purchased this dpn container I used pencil cases but the dpns kept poking through.

Bosnian Mittens

Here's a photo of the Bosnian mittens from a kit from Blackberry Ridge Farm that I gave away to a friend for her early morning runs. They were quite easy to knit and very warm. I did a little embroidery on the front of the mitten with the red color to jazz them up.

I am really enjoying the look of the Spontaneous Scarf. I'm doing it in reds from my stash in a variety of fibers and yarn weights with a lot of hand spun and Kool Aid dyed yarn. I may do a wider version as a stole next. A while back I had Sally Melville's Styles checked out from the library and she suggested to organize your yarn stash by color instead of yarn weight. Just the exercise of taking all the odd balls of yarn in my stash and organizing them by color range has had a wonderful result. I notice I really enjoy looking at baskets of yarn in one color range - the colors really pop out more.

It will most likely be a pretty boring knitting week. I'm on the plain part of the first Trondheim sleeve.

Ugly Tam

There is a wonderful article in the current issue of Spin-Off by Charlene Anderson-Shea. It is called Spontaneous Knitting and details a great idea for using up small amounts of yarn, oddballs, mini handspun skeins, etc. Essentially she casts on several hundred stitches and knits seed stich (which definitely looks woven) with a different yarn each row plus extra for fringe at the ends. I really like the look of the finished scarves in the article.

I really want to try this as I have a whole bag of odd handspun and hand-dyed yarns I'll never use otherwise. Plus I have a basket of odd skeins or leftovers from other projects that I can use up. I sorted through them all tonight and picked groups of similar colors for future scarfs.

I've heard people say all colors look good together but I don't agree. I'm trying to read more and more about color theory so I can do a better job of choosing colors when I add to the stash. For instance, I'll always try to pick some black to go with other colors. Black really does seem to make other discordant colors blend better.

I've certainly made some items with bad color mixes. Here's an example - it is a tam from Anna Zilboorg's hat book using Lamb's Pride (purple, pink, gray, brick red and dark green) and I really dislike the color combo. I gave it away to someone who thought differently.

I got about 6 inches done on the Dale of Norway Trondheim sleeve and then proceeded to rip it out. As you can probably tell I rip stuff out a lot. If I don't like the pattern, yarn, colors, or see a mistake, I will rip. Life is too short to spend time doing projects that are annoying.



I didn't like the accent colors DH picked for Trondheim so I decided to do it in more muted greens and blues. The dark color of the body of the sweater made the nifty purl texture pattern (that looks like ski tracks) totally disappear so I think I'll just do the K13 P3 rib instead. Ironically the ski track pattern is the reason I decided to knit Trondheim. The sweater is for my friend Brad who works at a ski resort grooming cross-country trails.



This week I received my first issue of my subscription to INKnitters. I am in love. I received a free copy of the first issue and decided not to subscribe but now that I've seen the current issue I know I have to order all the back issues. For knitters who love technique or experimentation, this is a fascinating magazine and packed with a lot more knitting content than the other knitting magazines. The Winter 2002 issue has stories on Anna Zilboorg's favorite buttonhole, handpainting your own yarn, a knitted intarsia Advent Calendar, and a pattern for a sock with a double knitted heel. The cover sweater is color knitting with the floats on the outside of the sweater. It is wonderful to see patterns that are five pages long rather than all the really simple stuff offered in mainstream knitting magazines. And after reading the article on knitting tips I went out and bought a $2 fishing tackle box to hold all my odds and ends (stitch markers, crochet hooks, tapestry needles, etc.)

Here's a photo of the Dale of Norway Sirdal cardigan done in Brown Sheep Nature Spun sport weight (colors - evergreen and snow) on size 2 and 4 needles. I used the small Sirdal buttons from Bea Ellis Knitwear and the back-ordered braid just arrived. Bea was kind enough to send a sample of the larger Sirdal braid and I'm glad I chose the thinner one. I've since added a few rows on the collar ribbing because I'm going to wear it as a coat.