

I love Lucy Neatby. She is a wonderfully talented knitter/designer who has come up with so many fabulous patterns. One of my favourite is her Paradoxical Mittens. This pattern was in my queue for quite some time, but because I have never knit mittens, or done fairisle before they had 2 strikes against them before I ever got them on the needles.
But something kept drawing me back to them and this past month I decided to 'get it out of my system' once and for all. I was on vacation at the time, in Florida. Probably not the best place to be knitting with silk and wool, which was my first choice for this project. I had taken with me a wound skein of Viola and another of Black over Violet in Sundara Yarns Fingering Silky Merino. I was caught up right from the beginning. My hands hurt, by back hurt, I was tense and probably irritable, but I couldn't put the project down once I got started. I was so proud of my work, and when I got to the thumb after several attempts at actually working with 2 colours, ripping, recasting on and starting again, I couldn't believe how gorgeous the mitten looked. It probably took me 2 days to finish the first one, without doing the thumb. Then the try-on. It was too tight, too short for my fingers, and the thumb should have been farther down the mitten. Rather than rip it back, I decided to try it again on larger needles make the appropriate changes to the pattern and take more care with the fairisle which was messy in some places. Glad I did. The finished product is something I'm very proud of. BUT....
There is so much yarn left over. So, now I'm working on another new technique for me - double knitting. I have tried this before and always found it to be a brain twister. I think it is something that should only be attempted if you are prepared to concentrate ALL THE TIME. The photo shows my progress on my version of the pattern used as fairisle in the mittens, using the double knitting technique - it represents my progress for 1 weeks worth of knitting. I have knit, ripped, and recast on 4 times, but I think now I finally have the hang of it. I'll work the scarf until the yarn runs out, then trim it with the same yarn as I used for the cuffs of the gloves.
When this is finished, it fill be nothiing but 'dummy' knitting for me for a while.
One Side
Other Side
Scarf w/Mittens
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