Jobo Designs

Over the weekend, I finally had a chance to tidy up the rest of the Fiddlehead Mitten yarn.  I had finished the green singles last week, and had been letting them rest for a bit so that they would be easier to Navajo ply.  I had also completed a bobbin of creamy natural white, also needing to be plied.  I also needed to set the twist on the finished skeins.  Since there really wasn?t that much left to be done before the cast on, I just went for it and got started.  Funny how the promise of casting on a new project can get a knitter so excited?  I plied like there was no tomorrow?

It was a chilly but sunny day, so I did my washing of the finished skeins (I suppose washing is a misnomer, I mostly just rinsed in hot water with a few drops of Apple Scented Dawn, probably not enough soap to be considered a washing?)  With the light breeze, the skeins were dry in no time.  I think I really achieved the feel I wanted with the woolen-spun yarns.  The skeins were light and bouncy, and very soft.

I took them over to my Mother?s place on Saturday morning and she helped me wind the skeins into balls, and I was off to the races with the knit up :)

The idea of an ?i-cord cast on? was completely new to me.  I will admit, the last time I made an i-cord was probably when I was 10, using one of those little red tube contraptions with the 4 pegs and a little tool to flip the loops over? So really I had kind of forgotten that it was a knitting technique to begin with. Adrian?s instructions were nice and clear :)  Do not fear the i-cord cast on? give it a try!  I will certainly be trying to come up with new ways to use this cast on in the future ? it makes a nice neat cast on edge that doesn?t roll up or look sloppy.  I thin it will keep the bottom of the mittens from looking stretched out too after being worn for a while

I am finding the pattern very straightforward to follow, and clearly written so far.  I was afraid that knitting these would take me way to long and that they would get in the way of my necessary holiday knitting.  Not so, thankfully!  I knit the entire first mitten (minus thumb) on Saturday, and finished the cast on for mitten number two before I went to bed.  Sunday I knit the majority of the second mitten while watching movies with the Husbeast (who was also amazed at the speed of progress)

During the spinning progress, I had been concerned that perhaps the slight uneven-ness in my spinning might show up as uneven points in the knitting, but I am quite happy with my results.  Overall, the cream yarn and the colors meshed together quite nicely, and the gauge throughout the mitten seems fairly consistent.  (It?s a little hard to tell from the pic above, the way the photo was taken, things are a little skewed? some of my photos turned out a little too blurry to use unfortunately, I?ll have to be more careful with the finished mitts pics)  The dyeing job also worked out as planned ? a Rainbow of slightly heathered yarns in a progression of colors.

Hopefully this evening I can finish the top of Mitt #2 (before I forget exactly what I did with the first one) and maybe spend some time spinning up the rest of the lining (I think I have enough done for one lining, but not the second complete one. 

Yay! This project is turning out as planned :)