Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Minion Fingerless Mitts

When I saw the Minion Fingerless Mitts crochet pattern I was so excited to cast on (start hooking?  I'm not sure what you say for crochet... I'll stick with cast on I think.)

I pulled out my size H crochet hook and some KnitPicks Wool of the Andes in Semolina, Winter Night, White, Black and Mist.  This project used 2 g each of White and Mist (5 yards), 19 g (42 yards) Semolina, 8 g (18 yards) Winter Night, 4 g (9 yards) Coal KnitPicks Wool of the Andes in worsted weight.


I must have done the first chain a dozen times.  I wantd to make sure that it would be stretchy enough to fit over a hand.  I started with a 27 stitch chain rather than 25 st. 


Hmm... the top is much stretchier than the bottom.  I may decided to reverse the color of the rows, so the top of the fingerless mitt is the "cast on" chain and the bottom is where I fasten off.  This would lead to a better fit and then I could work with the stitch counts directed.  Yup.  I think this is exactly what I'm going to do. 


I chained 25, and then started with row 12.  I worked the rows backwards, and then at the end went around and SC'd around the top to make it neater (so making round 13 last). For consistency, I did my first 2 yellow rows of one mitt, and then the first two yellow rows of the second.  They look to be similarly shaped, right? 


It was really fun to see the stripes grow row by row. 


Since there was no additional shaping to these fingerless mitts (no thumb gusset or anything), I decided to just make two right glove bases.  Based on fit, I DC'd 22 sts, and then chained 5, making it an increase to 27 stitches for the rest of the glove. 


In general I don't love the gauge created with the H hook and worsted weight yarn.  It is so much looser than would be warm, but I think this is generally the case with DC stitches anyway, there are always some holes. 


I did end up adding the sc round at the top of the last round.  Wahoo!  I love how it looks.


Phew.  I thought this was going to be a much easier project then it turned out to be.  I would have fiddled with the gauge a bit, but really these are intended to be fun more than anything else.  Next time, I might increase the number of stitches and rows for the gloves themselves. 


The eyes and mouths ended up being a piece of cake.  I like sewing on a crochet chain much better than trying to embroider a smile.  I have a feeling that these will be a hit with my friend!