Spring green mitts

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I am now back in England and we had a beautiful hour or two of sun this afternoon (!) in which to take some photos of my new mitts.  These are the mitts which I was knitting last week while in South Africa communing with elephants.

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This is the pattern Wedgewood Mitts, designed by me.  I designed them to play around with a lovely shipment of Kate Davies’ new yarn, Buachaille.  The original pair, made for Leah, was in a very pretty mid-blue with white edging.  Just before leaving for Johannesburg, I tossed a skein of this lovely spring green, called Yaffle, and the remaining white from the first pair of mitts, into my suitcase.

I made a few small modifications from my original pattern.  Here is what I did:

  1. Cast on an extra 4 stitches (48)
  2. Worked an extra two rows of corrugated ribbing
  3. Decreased 4 stitches after ribbing
  4. Worked an extra 2 rows before starting gusset
  5. Worked three rows less before adding white edging

Basically, this added 4 stitches just to the cuff, to make the cuff a tiny bit more roomy.  I also made the cuff portion of the mitt slightly longer, while making the finger portion of the mitt slightly shorter.

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I am very happy with how they worked out, and am especially charmed with the combination of this spring green and the white (Yaffle and Ptarmigan in Buachaille-speak).  Obviously, I am not the only one to think so.  I had finished the first mitt and cast on for the second when I noticed that Kate Davies had designed a new hat for release at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival this weekend:

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© Kate Davies Designs

 

I absolutely love this design, which was inspired by a collection of Hornsea pottery designed by John Clappison in the 1960s; go read Kate’s post here.  Sadly, I cannot be at the festivities in Edinburgh this weekend, but I did try to alleviate my misery by ordering a kit to make this hat!  Just think how pretty it will look with the mitts.

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Happy Sunday everyone!