A Bunch of Little Squares

 After finishing the duck socks, I got a strong craving to knit another pair of mittens. I quickly picked 3 colors from the stash, a stitch pattern from one of my books, and made these.

Pattern: None. Just something I've put together, Estonian style.

Size: Womans Medium

Yarn: Valley Yarns Huntington
Content: 75% Merino, 25% Nylon, Fingering weight.
Color: White

Yarn: Red Heart Heart and Sole
Content: 70% Superwash Wool/30% Nylon, Fingering weight
Color: Navy

Yarn: Opal Uni Solid 4ply
Content: 75% Superwash Wool/25% Nylon, Fingering weight
Color: 1413 Fuschia

Needles: Circular size 2

Started: September 15, 2024
Finished: October 1, 2024

Comments: I love these! I custom fit them to my own hands. They feel wonderful. The stitch pattern came from my newly acquired book The Big Book of Latvian Mittens, though I altered it a bit so it's not exactly the same.

Back

I was reading one of my mittens books and learned the thumbs are knit in a stranded pattern for the warmth. It makes the fabric at least double thick. I have seen patterns where the thumb and fingers are knit in plain stockinette and they are not as warm.

Front

I absolutely love the color combination. The pattern was surprisingly easy to knit too. I had it memorized very quickly and it knit up very fast.

Stitch pattern detail

I had a few different choices for decreasing the thumbs. I chose the easiest one, which was having a center stitch on each side that always was knit with the background color of the row, and decreasing either side of those center stitches. My tension is still rather sloppy when I get to the small circumference part of any knitting. Hopefully it will improve in time.

Thumb

About the cuff. I got the idea from gloves and mittens being sold in the NordicMittens Etsy store. Külli Jacobs, who knits for and owns it, is kind of my knitting hero. She does such beautiful work and I've been inspired by her to pursue excellence in my knitting and got me started making Estonian mittens.

 

Cuff

 I actually bought a pair of her gloves during the summer just so I could look at them close up. They're going to be so warm this winter. Anyway, the cuff is basically a 12 stitch feather and fan pattern. I knit 5 rows MC, 1 row CC, 4 rows MC, 2 rows CC, 3 rows MC, 3 rows CC, 2 rows MC, 4 rows CC, 1 row MC, and 5 rows CC. Then I started repeating it all again just to add the small amount of length I needed to finish the cuff.

This next picture is for the knitters out there. We like to see the inside of stranded knitted items just to check out how even the floats are.

Inside

This is next pic shows the only mistake I made. I started and ended both mittens on the same row of the pattern, there's exactly the same number of rows, but for whatever reason, they didn't end the same. I decreased to 10 stitches left, then I finished with a 3 needle bind off. I have no idea why the pink squares are off or how it happened-yet. I need to sit and study them a bit. Oddly, this does not bother me. I would enter them in the fair..

Top tips

I'm looking forward to wearing them this very-soon-coming winter.

It's a beautiful sunny day today. The sky is so clear and it smells like fall already. It's pretty chilly out though. Tomorrow should be back in the 70's. I'm planning on being out on the deck for awhile.

Live long and prosper. \\//

My First Estonian Style Mitten

 I am so excited to post this. I finished my Estonian mittens! I am very proud of them.

Pattern: My First Estonian Mittens by Linda Jo Park

Size: Womans Small

Yarn: Valley Yarns Huntington
Content: 75% Merino, 25% Nylon, Fingering weight.
Color: White

Yarn:Schachenmayr Regi a 4-fädig 4-ply

Content: 75% Superwash Wool/25% Nylon, Fingering weight
Color: 33019 (Aqua)

Yarn: Mountain Colors Bearfoot

Content: 60% Wool/25% Mohair/15% Nylon, Fingering weight
Color: Ruby

Needles: Circular size 1

Started: February 12, 2024
Finished: July 22, 2024

Comments: I am so pleased with these. I took a basic mitten pattern and applied the Estonian techniques and stitch patterns to it. I got the Chevron and the larger floral pattern from the book 
Eesti labakindad ilma laande laiali - Estonian mittens all around the world by Aino Praakli

Back

Close up of the stitch pattern. I should mention that I duplicate stitched the red stitches because I didn't think of it until knitting a whole mitten. I was not going to start over. 

I have no idea if Estonians did that or not. Probably not. I don't care at this point.

Palm

Close up of the thumb stitch pattern. It is common for the thumbs to be a smaller stitch pattern from the hand. I picked one that kind of matched. I found it somewhere on the internet.

Here is the pattern I used. It is 8 stitches wide and 12 rows tall.

This is the cuff. Estonian style mittens and gloves have quite an assortment of stitch patterns they used for cuffs besides the standard, and ordinary, one by one rib.

I learned quite a bit from knitting these mittens. I admit there were days when I almost threw them across the room in frustration because I just couldn't get it right. It was worth the trouble though.  Besides, I love learning new things. I've also improved my tension using small needles when changing from one needle to the next, so no more ladders from too loose or vertical ridges from knitting too tight.

I have been thinking about knitting mittens to sell in my local area. I would have to find a store to sell them, and figure out sizing issues. The mittens above are size woman's small because I did them with size 1 needles which got me a stitch gauge of 10 stitches per inch. Yes, you read that right. I think it's the most stitches per inch I've ever knit, except maybe the thread beaded knit amulet bags I made in the mid 2000's. (I still want to finish that book.) Mittens are knit tighter than usual so they are warmer. Anyway, the idea is rolling around in my head. I've even stocked up on a bit of yarn to get started with the knitting. I need to find a boutique in town that caters to wealthy travelers looking for Idaho made souvenirs. I wonder if there is one? I'll have to look into it.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Kisurakkaus Mittens

 I finished these mittens just in time. I need to send them to my daughter next week if they're gonna make it there by her birthday.

Pattern: Kisurakkaus Kirjoneulelapaset by Hanna Pesonen

Size: Womens Medium

Yarn: Lana Gatto Wool Gatto

Content: 100% Superwash Wool, Sport weight
Color: Black

Yarn: Berroco Comfort Sock
Content: 50% Nylon, 50% Acrylic. Fingering weight
Color: 1812

Needles: Circular size 3

Started: March 21, 2024
Finished: April 21, 2024

Comments: I learned so much making these mittens. I wouldn't recommend them for a beginner though, that's for sure! First of all, the pattern is written in Finnish, which I don't know anything about. The charts are pretty good though, so I figured I'd figure it out.

The designer made these with Aran weight yarn and got a gauge of 29 stitches to 4 inches. With ARAN yarn! I could not get that gauge using a light worsted weight (I originally planned to use Cascade 220 Wool) and size 1. I dug in my stash and found a skein of sport weight black Lana Gatto. I found two skeins of Berroco Comfort fingering sock yarn for the second color. Decided to knit with 2 strands held together of that. I got gauge with a size 3 needle.

I made a small change to the pattern. I started with 3 rounds of 1 by 1 rib. I felt the need for something to pull the fabric in just a bit before that first Latvian Braid. It has a kind of stabilizing effect.

The main motif on the back of the hand is this cute little Art Deco style cat. 

The pattern only has one chart, so I had to figure out how to reverse it for the second mitten so the cats would face each other. I scanned the chart into my computer as a jpeg, flipped it and called it good.

This is the palm side.

Here's a close up of the paw print.

Detail of the thumb. Little cat heads. The back side is just the alternating dot pattern. The thumb gave me a hard time. When you put the thumb stitches on a holder, you then cast on just 3 stitches in the space made and carry on. When it is time to put the thumb stitches back on the needle, you then have to pick up 11 more sts, but there's only three in that space. I've not seen a thumb like that before. Fortunately, my daughter came to the rescue and found a video that explains how to do that here:

Picking Up Stitches For The Thumb

And, because people ask, here's the inside floats.

There was a lot of tinking and frogging for this project so I'm super glad to have them done. With any luck, I'll get them in the mail later this week.

I still don't have my Medicare card. I talked to them on the phone a second time which resulted in them sending me a form to have my husband fill out which confirmed I'm his wife. Then two weeks ago I found out my application has been denied for not having enough work credits. 

That was it! I've been waiting for 3 months! Friday of that week I finally called Senator Crapo, who is our Senator, and asked for help. Their problem solver emailed me a form to fill out giving them permission to look into my files, and I was told they'll get it fixed. Last Friday I received the official application denial from Social Security in the mail. Haven't heard from Crapo's office since sending in the form.

Contrary to what SSA seems to think, I am qualified to receive Medicare. I've been married to my husband for 42 years. I figure I've worked maybe a total of 7 years during that time. The rest of the time I've been the house wife/stay at home mom. Doug worked enough to qualify us both for Medicare. Sheesh, what a mess!

This year I bought my plants for the deck flower boxes early. Plants are readily available too soon by at least 6 weeks for my personal weather zone. I can't plant until after Mothers Day. I thought I could keep them alive by putting them out during the day, and bringing them in at night so they don't freeze. I got 36 marigolds and 12 strawberries. Yup. That didn't work out. I forgot to bring them in 2 nights later and we got a freeze cold enough to kill the marigolds (strawberries are fine). I was lamenting this to my friend on Monday and she told me about a tiny little greenhouse on sale at BiMart. She went with me to the store to help me find them. I bought one. I also bought marigolds to replace the dead ones. 

This little house works! It's surprisingly well made. The front has a doorway that zips closed. I've been putting a pot of tap hot water on the bottom shelf at night to make extra sure my plants stay alive, but it's supposed to be able to keep them alive down to 20F with the door zipped up.

I'm very happy with it.

Still working on Andoa. I'll talk about it another time.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Snow Fern

 Finished the Snow Fern hat.

Pattern: Snow Fern Hat (DK) by Kalurah Hudson
Size: Large

Yarn: Berroco Vintage® DK
Content: 52% Acrylic, 40% Wool, 8% Nylon, DK weight
Color: 2192 Chana dal

Needles: ChiaoGoo circular size 2 and 3

Cast On: December 23, 2023
Finished: February 3, 2024

Comments: This was a fun knit. The stitch pattern is so pretty. I didn't find it particularly difficult either. The only real problem I had with this is when I finished the pattern chart, the hat was supposed to  be 8 inches long. It was 6.5, but I just kept knitting the chart until it was 8 inches. I had to figure out where in the chart to continue, which turned out to be row 14.

 On the top I put a matching button I found in my stash because the fake fur pompom has a tiny elastic loop at the bottom for putting it on a button. When you need to wash the hat, you just pop the pompom off.

This is the hat from the back.

I think this late Christmas present will be well appreciated.

The weather has turned wet. Today it's just at that temperature where it wobbles between snow and rain. It's probably going to be that way this whole week. We need snow in our mountains. We've received way below average this year which usually leads to a very dry summer.

We've had a lot of furnace guys around here. When the new furnace was installed, it had a horrible rattling sound. It took 4 days to figure out why it rattles. The blower is defective. The last repair guy showed up this morning and figured it out. He put some kind of cushion between the blowers screws and the surface they're screwed to and the noise has gone away. I want them to just replace the defective blower. Not looking forward to the phone battle.

Over the weekend I worked on getting an Estonian mitten pattern put together. I'm picking the various parts from one of my mitten books called Eesti Labakindad Ilma Laande Laiali by Aino Praakli. It's written in both Estonian and English. It's been out of print awhile but I've found several places selling it, including Amazon. While doing this I've learned so much about mittens coming from that area of the world. It's been rather fascinating.

Live long and prosper. \\//