Seahorse Mittens

Happy Birthday, Laura! I made a hat for Laura about a year ago, so I wanted to do something different for her Christmas present. The "Selbuvott or not" alias Selbu Sea Horse Mittens knitting pattern spoke to me. It is a stranded project, but more modern. I made a few modifications to the pattern which I will detail below.

I printed the charts out to cut and paste them together to be on a single page. Unfortunately when I lined them up, the alternative palm charts didn't line up with the seahorses. 105% magnification worked for the left miten, 110% was still too small for the right, 115% too big.... 113% was just right (that only took me 4 tries...)

I used size 1, 2.5 mm double pointed knitting needles and KnitPicks palette yarn in Cosmopolitan (27 g) and Blue Note Heather (34 g).

The only thing I didn't like about this pattern was the ribbed cuff. I'm using a chart found on p71 of the 2007 edition of SELBUVOTTER: Biography of a Knitting Tradition(Chart A from Annemor #12) Above and below it, I am going to use the arrow charts by the designer (but going in alternate directions.) (I was lucky when I chose this chart that is a 12 stitch repeat. The cast on for this glove is 60, whereas the seahorse mittens are only 48) Looking at the stitch count, I decided to start at 60 sts because this made gloves to fit my hand in the past. I proceeded with the cuff as follows:

• start with 4 rounds of K2, P2 (cast on 60 sts)
• Knit 1 round across in MC
• 1 round CC, Left mitten chart from this pattern, 1 round CC
• 1 round MC
  
• Chart A from annemor #12 (just the middle part)
• 1 round MC
• 1 round CC
  
• Then do opposite direction chart (for the left mitten, then the right handed chart and vice versa.)

I love this modified cuff pattern. I really want to turn this into fingerless mittens.

My gauge is getting bigger. When I compare these mittens to Keith's and then mine, these ended up being a lot bigger. Laura's hands are bigger than mine, and these aren't outrageously huge on me... In the lost package, there was a note where I said I would felt these down a bit if they were too big for her. Maybe I should start using smaller needles for these projects...

I loved the way the hot pink in the blue note heather played against the bright pink of the cosmopolitan. The charts were fantastic, and I hope that I can design mittens that are this brilliant in the future.