sock porn for knitting voyeurs.

Monday, August 20, 2007

i can has mittens?

sorry, couldn't resist :)

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twee mitts, pattern by magic-fingers.blogspot.com
handspun merino/silk, ashland bay "rose"
US 8 (5.0mm) dpns, 4
started & finished: 20 august 2007

What a fun, fast pattern. I knew when Anushka posted pics that it would be perfect for using little bits of lovely handspun-- mine finished with ribbon weighed in at 42 gm (and I still have leftovers... there's a compulsion in me to squeeze to the last drop when it comes to something good and special like yarn I've spun myself).

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Mine were a little different than Anushka's, both on purpose and on accident :) On purpose, I started with a folded edge picot caston instead of a provisional that's finished later... I'm just more familiar with it. The folding over gives a little more puff and weight to the edge. I CO, knit 2 rnds, did the yo/k2tog row, knit 2 rnds and then attached the CO edge by knitting it together with the next row. Needles same throughout; I CO an extra st (56 total) and k2tog'd when starting the actual fingerless glove pattern after "seaming" the co edge. It does leave visible a little seam edge when viewing, you guessed it, up the skirt...

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...but it's not noticeable from the business side. Meanwhile, back on the farm-- I worked the slipped st cable rib a little differently than written; I slipped as if to purl, knit next st, replaced slipped st to LH needle and knit into the back of its loop. Again, this was just a change b/c it's what I was used to doing. Finally for the on-purpose portion of our program, I knit the hand 2 repeats longer than written (and waited to start the palm ribbing to match)-- my row gauge was on, but the column gauge wasn't. No big deal, even with the added length and extra yarn used for the picot cast on, I had plenty of yarn.

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Very pretty mittens :) A pain to put on (and take photos of) by your lonesome, but Anushka has much better ones here. (And is like, the cutest designer-cum-knitwear model in the process.)

Speaking of MITTENS...

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Magnificent Mittens by Anna Zilboorg

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Latvian mitten technique encyclopedia, Russian (?) 1994
"Latvijas enciklopedija," isbn 5-8869-057-4
Latvijas enciklopediju redakcija riga 1994
BapeЖkи 350 y3opob
Cimdi 350 Rakstu

I know Stacey's chomping at the bit wondering where I found Magnificent Mittens (since it's oop and amazon sellers have it listed for ridiculous amounts...) :) Dumb is as lucky does, I bought the last copy from elann.com for retail. I guess I just luck into finding rad mitten books I shouldn't be finding... maybe I should actually knit a mitten or two soon :)

As excited as I am about Magnificent Mittens, it's totally overshadowed by the Latvian/Russian book. I don't really know a thing about it-- the first 25 or so pages are in Russian (?-- apologies if I'm way off base), detailing the pictures inside and with a few knitting techniques/keys to instructions. The rest of the book consists of 350 different images-- full shot completed mittens, cuff edgings, line drawn techniques and charts. (Each link leads to a flickr photo, and here's one of the back of the book-- Latvian?)

edit, 8/27: shake-your-booties was kind enough to leave me this comment about the mystery latvian mitten book:

Your book appears to be in Latvian, but the title is in Russian.

Варежки (pronounced var'ezhki) is Russian for "mittens" and узор (printed as узоров because it is associated with the number 350) is "pattern."

This was another serendipitous find, I was googling for Upitis' Latvian Mittens (high on my elann mitten score) and stumbled upon this one. It reminds me a lot of the online Latvian mitten collection here (and gloves here). Both are slow loading pages, but lovely. The source page has socks and other stranded knitting pics linked from it, as well.

Since we're on the subject of books, for posterity's sake my Interweave Hurt Book Sale purchases (last year's are here):

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Alden Amos' Big Book of Handspinning (back in stock @ Amazon)
Meg Swansen's Knitting
Color in Spinning by Deb Menz

Like last year, I can't tell what makes these books "hurt." There's a little wear on the bottoms, but really not a big deal.

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Don't be bummed if you missed out though... at 50% off plus 4.95 shipping to start, unless you were snagging books that were going oop or buying several you could get a similar deal by shopping amazon. (I'd thought that The Big Book of Handspinning was going oop since it was gone from amazon for so long; Schoolhouse Press says that Knitting is going oop soon.) Mine were fine, but a few reported on Ravelry that they received books that were more damaged (I thought I'd read somewhere people were missing actual pages from their books as well...?)

Anyway! For next year :)

...for next time? Hanami's done, but I still am borked on blocking and don't really want to bother with it :)

12 comments:

Chris said...

Pretty mitts!

I have NO LUCK with that sale. Argh.

Dave said...

No expert here, but I'd say your book is Latvian, not Russian. Riga is the capital of Latvia. Remember last year there was all the fuss about the NATO meeting in Riga and they all got Latvian mittens?

http://www.rigasummit.lv/en/id/cats/nid/698/

An extraordinary find!!

lexa said...

I'd love to try Latvian mittens sometime. That will be a ways away, though. But you never know!

Kirsten said...

Those mitts are soo pretty!!!

Lucky you with the book score!

Courtney said...

Those are sooo pretty, I love them. They bow just tops it off
:-) Good job!!

turtlegirl76 said...

Those mittens are too cute! What a great idea for a little bit of handspun. I forget all the lovely little projects you can do with it. I really need to knit something with my 2 hanks I've spun.

Stacey said...

cute little mitts!! I'm off to seek the book. I will find it!!! From now on, I think you should just buy 2 of everything you find and ship me one... :)

tatjana said...

What a great book! The seduction of colourwork is slowly drawing me in...thanks for the link to the Latvian mitten page, it rocks!! And your mitties are darling, I love things for winter that are a bit girly, it's so hard to girlify yourself all bundled up :)

Unknown said...

Nice fingerless mitts! And I love the mitten book. I bought one last year.

Opal said...

blocking lace really is a chore. i used to love watching the magic unfold, but now the thought of crawling around just makes me cringe. so you definitely have my sympathies. :-)

btw, love the title of your post.

syb said...

Your book appears to be in Latvian, but the title is in Russian.

Варежки (pronounced var'ezhki) is Russian for "mittens" and узор (printed as узоров because it is associated with the number 350) is "pattern."

It looks like a wonderful book!

WandaWoman said...

Love those mittens, especially the ribbons.

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