Here is Julia's hat-and-mitts set for her Washington DC 8th-grade trip, which is coming up quickly at the end of the month. I made a set for Laura two years ago, and used the same yarns again -- Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted and Shepherd Sock -- in Julia's choice of blue.
The hat is Minty by Erica Jackofsky from Knitty a few years back, which works up very quickly and satisfyingly -- this is the striped version without the stripes (the solid version has a different crown shaping). Julia wanted something that wasn't close-shaped, so I chose this one because the shaping gives it a little squareness at the top of the head. The scrunch at the side is accomplished with a column of double eyelets with the i-cord laced through -- simple but effective. The yarn is (of course!) very pleasant in itself, and suits this hat well, too.
The mitts are my own standard Norwegiany mitts, with a ribbed thumb. As I mentioned previously, I tried something new with this pair, working them "inside out" so as to keep the floats from pulling too tightly. It turns out that they are quite loose, not quite too loose, but nearly -- but I think this will be all right in the long run, as Laura's have pulled in a little bit with wear and washing, so I expect this pair will be no different. The places where it is a little too loose are along the edges of the thumb gusset, where I think there would have been problems anyway, with the long floats across the gusset, so I'm still pleased with the method and will certainly avail myself of it in future.
The star is a sort of impromptu one, not from any pattern -- I simply graphed out the initials and date in a block about the right size, and filled in a star pattern. These initials are a bit larger than Laura's, so I had less space to work with for the star, wh. ended up looking as much Navajo as Norwegian, but I don't think that's a problem per se!
I still haven't worked out to my satisfaction a method of securing the floats behind 2x2 ribbing, but the flashes of white underneath the china blue here are not unpleasing, as it happens --
I think that Julia is actually beginning to come round to the idea that not all wool is scratchy, but I'm not going to tell her I've noticed that she likes wearing these! We had a cold snap yesterday -- with hail -- after a few weeks of mid-springlike weather, so hurriedly got out the sweaters and scarves we'd discarded, and Julia wore the mitts to school yesterday and today both!
If they are cute, I guess it doesn't matter. And they are.
Posted by: Mary Lou | March 12, 2016 at 08:00 AM