Miracle Mitts

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After whipping out my Kaleigh Kap, I was quickly looking for another project to knit on my brand new set of DPNs from Knit Picks. I remembered Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts and was immediately inspired to make a pair for myself. I work in a cubicle at my day job, and, like in many offices, the air conditioner apparently pipes air in straight from the Bering Sea. Mitts were the answer. I immediately scoured my stash to find the right yarn.

I remembered I had some self-striping Felici in the now-retired Arugula colorway and it occurred to me that it might be the same weight as the massive amounts of Koigu KPM I have lying around. I knit a swatch and, though I had to knit the mitts with a needle one size larger, the Felici and Koigu worked beautifully together!

So I got started:



I think I watched three episodes of Flight of the Conchords while finishing this part:



And soon enough, I had one mitt done!



I had completely failed to plan out the striping pattern with the Felici, so I resigned myself to having the stripes not match on the mitts. Imagine my surprise, then, when the second mitt started matching perfectly! Without any planning by me, the stripes match up nearly to the stitch, and definitely to the row! The knitting gods must have been smiling at me, and thus, the mitts have been deemed MIRACLE MITTS.

However, with each miracle comes challenges. Do you see something wrong with this picture?



It wasn't until I bound off, finished the thumb ribbing, and even wove in all the ends before I realized that I accidentally added an extra repeat of the chart in the base of the second mitt.

Cursing ensued.

And then I frogged:



If the stripes hadn't matched up perfectly, I might have just resigned myself to two mitts of different length. But with the miracle of the matching stripes, I just couldn't leave it be. So I frogged and re-knit, and now they're perfect!

They're good for texting:



They're good for editing screenplays:



And they're iPhone compatible!



One final note: I used the "traditional" tubular cast on as described in Knitty instead of the one suggested by Eunny Jang. I just couldn't get the hang of casting on over the tail, so I opted for the method using waste yarn. It still made a fabulous edge, and now the tubular method is my favorite cast-on for 1x1 ribbing.

Next up: hot pink leg warmers for my favorite neurotic dog.