Jacaranda Mitts Finished

I have some sad news. DD's Betta Splendens (fish), George/Dorothy, passed away yesterday. He didn't improve with a water change and he should have been comfortable with the Marineland Visi-Therm Stealth submersible heater which kept his tank toasty warm around 80°F (I kept verifying this with the digital thermometer). He was already on the large side when we rescued him from the pet store; I think he died of old age.

DD told me she wanted to get a goldfish. I know they're "poopy" fish and grow very large, so I'm trying to steer her towards another Betta Splendens. I told her we can try to find a red one. Perhaps we'll even find a Crown Tail! We'll see. I've cleaned out the old tank and will wait a few weeks before reusing it.

There's an old photo of Geroge over here.
.

Related post: 6 Dec 2009 (2 Photos)

I have finished the purple pair of Four Rib Braid Cable Mitts. These are the elongated ones where I did an extra repeat of Rounds 1-16 of the cable pattern. These will go to one of DD's teachers only IF I can finish another pair of mitts for her other teacher in the same classroom. I've started the other teacher's mitts in some blue yarn and just finished the main portion of the 1st mitt. I need to cast on for the 2nd mitt, and then do the thumbs on both mitts. I need to get this done by Friday, the day of the Christmas party.

I like the longer length on these mitts, they'll keep arms/wrist warm by covering up that gap between wrist and jacket sleeve. I think I'll have to make some longer mitts for myself sometime.
.

Pattern: Four Rib Braid Cable Mitts
Yarn: 1.5 balls Elann Highland Wool, Jacaranda
Needles: 4.5 mm (US7)

.

This is some Cascade 128 wool yarn Vicki gave me to make her some fingerless mitts. I've never knit with black yarn before so this will be interesting. The yarn is bulky, and the label recommends needle size US10 or Us10.5. I don't normally go higher than US8, so I'll have to see what larger size needles I have. I know I don't have any DPNs in that size, but I might have one or two circular needles I can use for knitting in the round. I may even have to go down to US9 (if I have 2 circs in that size). I know I have at least 2 circs in US8, but I'll have to see how it feels using that size. I think this one hank should be enough for a pair of mitts.

So... I'm not accustomed to knitting with such thick yarn. All I'm sure of is having to cast on fewer stitches, I'm gonna take a guess that it'll be in the 28 to 32 stitch range. This doesn't leave me with many stitches to work with for a pattern on the back of the hand. I think I might just do an 8-stitch XO cable down the back of the hand (the XO Cable looks like the cable panel on the outer edges of my St Albans Valentine Cable Scarf). But I'll sit down and browse through the stitch dictionaries to see of anything else catches my eye.

She also gave me a ball of this, Rowan Classic Yarns Soft Tweed, another bulky yarn. There's only 87 yards in this ball and I think that's cutting it close for a pair of mitts. She says she has a 2nd ball somewhere. So I'll start on her black mitts first, and figure out what her grey mitts later.

Copyright © Smariek Knits 2005-2009. All full copyright rights are reserved by Smariek Knits