Friday 22 March 2013

Baht 'At Mitts Finished


I have just finished the Baht 'At fingerless mitts from Ann Kingstone's Born & Bred book.  Very timely, as it has turned out - it's snowing and the local weatherman predicts it's going to snow for 50 hours!  (Whereas exactly a year ago, it was unusually warm - 15°C.)

I used the yarn that Ann specified for the mitts - Titus, from Baa Ram Ewe, which is a wool/alpaca mix.  It's named after Sir Titus Salt, who built the village of Saltaire, near Bradford, around his mill.  The story is that he made his fortune from developing ways to spin and weave alpaca, when no-one else in Bradford thought it was worth anything. 

I changed the pattern a bit, by adding a few extra stitches:  I wanted to knit them quite tightly and I've got big hands.  I've also made the thumbs a bit longer.  I'm really pleased with them.  One nice point, that you can't see, is that although the right side of the pattern is very textured, the other side looks almost like stocking stitch.  Because the yarn is slightly fuzzy, the inside of the mitts is smooth and soft - they are lovely to wear.

For a small project, it's taken me a while to finish them. I was only knitting them occasionally, especially on long journeys on public transport, because it was a very portable project.   I did quite a bit on the flight to Portland in February, and on a train to London and back last Saturday. The woolholder I bought on eBay proved invaluable for knitting on a plane - it sat on the tray table, and so there was no risk of the ball of wool falling on the floor and rolling down the aisle.
 

When I finished knitting, I opened the woolholder, and found that the ball of wool looked pretty much the same as when I started.  I have used just 40g. of the original 100g. skein.  So I could knit another three mitts!  But actually, I have plans to use it along with the leftover alpaca from my Color Affection shawl  and from the brioche stitch scarf I made as a Christmas present the year before last.  There are 5 different colours altogether, all 4-ply, and I have some ideas for some kind of stripy cowl or tubular scarf.   Not quite worked out yet.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...