Stulpen Fingerless Mitts: WIP

Dave over at Criminy Jickets made some very nice fingerless mittens using this pattern (the English version is at the bottom). These appealed to me because they're not plain but they're not lacy either. And I hadn't done any cables for years. Maybe decades. So as soon as my socks came off the needles, a mitt went on. Here is the progress so far.


Not too shabby, but I expect I'll be making 3 and using the best 2! The needles are Knit Picks size 2 (3mm) and are more pointy than any I've used before. I'm getting used to them, though, and the pointiness helps with cabling without a separate needle. Wendy has a good tutorial on the technique here. I wanted to be able to chuck these in the washing machine, so I fished my sole ball of sport weight Wool-Ease (color is Wood) out of the stash. The label recommends size 5 (3.75mm) needles, but the resulting fabric was too loose and not elastic enough. The picture? Flatbed scanner with the histogram tweaked to make the background whiter. The yarn color's pretty close. Not bad for the middle of the night! Blame the NASA channel, chocolate, and two knitting projects for my wakefulness.

Two projects? Haven't I told you about the magic ball vest? What would you do with a huge box full of beautiful wool in hundreds of colors, none of it longer than 32 inches? What if you didn't know yet about spit splices? What if you got interested in Koolaid dyeing? Would you turn knots and yarn ends into a design element?



The pattern is Puget Sound from Classic Knitted Vests. Puget Sound is the gray vest on the cover. Notice the lack of any shades of white. I'm saving the cool colors for another project someday.