Wednesday, March 30, 2011

getting the hang of this!

knitting with silk mawata - it seems easy, and really, it is, once you get the hang of it.

Attenuating the silk is still something I need to work at. I can get it pretty even, but since this was my first time, I wasn't sure how fine or thick to stretch it out - I would have hated to get to within an inch of the top of the mitt and find myself out of silk. However, by erring on the side of caution, I think I am going to have extra left over. These mitts are never going to stop wind - they are a little fine for that, but already I can feel how warm they are going to be. Seriously, Stephanie was right - they are like little hand ovens.
I have this colourway (Blue Moon's Dragon's Dance), and another from them (Lagoon), and last week I fell down and hurt my credit card on Etsy and bought a couple more bundles - Once I get them, I'll let you you the details of the Etsy buy, but I want to see them first. Their price was a lot better than Blue Moon's, but I'll wait and see on the quality - one never knows...

(A good hand cream is your best friend while knitting this stuff...)

Going forward, I think I may keep the needle size (3mm), and stitch count (48), since it works for my hands, but when attenuating the silk (thanks, You Tube!!)(the attenuating part starts around 5:00 minutes) I may keep it thicker the create a denser fabric.


(I've already got more done than this shows - the thumb gusset is done,
and they fit snugly, but not tightly. Perfect.)

Either way, I'm in love. Really, really in love with these. They weight nothing, look spectacular, and to my non-knitting extended family that saw them in progress, simply re-confirmed the fact that to them, I'm the weirdest of the weird.

Works for me.

5 comments:

Acorn to Oak said...

Looks fun and the color is so pretty!

Anonymous said...

Looks great. I can hardly wait to see the other colours!

Needles said...

'LIKE'

Saren Johnson said...

I can't wait to see how these turn out.

Carol said...

Nifty! I also don't think it's weird. Does that mean I have drunk the Kool aid?