fo: Fingerless Mitts for a Friend

Whoops, sorry folks - didn't mean to disappear for so long there.  Between the class I'm teaching kicking it up into overdrive for exam prep, frantically trying to tie up ends at the end of my contract at the 9-5 job, spending time with new friends, multiple house-guests, and a week-long visit from my best friend (!!!) last month, it's been a little frantic around these parts.

I've been doing a lot of knitting though, mostly for stress relief.  There's been days where the only thing that's saved me was taking 20 minutes to just knit and read a book!

One of the things I've made is one of the only knitted gifts I'm doing for December's Christmas (as opposed to April's Christmas when I fly down to celebrate with family); a pair of fingerless mitts for a friend.

This buddy of mine just landed herself a geology job in the far FAR north - so far north that I believe they're under 24 hour darkness right now!  She was my cross-shift at my last mining job, and I remember finding all sorts of warming devices on our shared office when I'd come into camp.

I figured a pair of fingerless mitts might come in handy for office work up there!

Pattern: Edith Mitts and Mittens, by Faye Perriam-Reed
Yarn: Drops Nepal in Deep Ocean colourway
Needles: 3.5 mm and 4 mm
Mods: ALL OF THEM.

I'm not actually a big fan of this pattern.  I got it ages ago, thinking it was charming, but in reality they're really large and long mitts.  I made a size small and they were almost too big for my larger (for a woman) hands.  I mean, I've learned that I have short palms, but the first mitt went to my fingertips when I followed the pattern, and would've covered my entire thumb if I didn't modify it.  Sort of defeats the purpose of fingerless mitts, in my mind.

So I ripped the first mitt back and adjusted the pattern.  Here's my Rav page for a quick summary.  First off, I did an extra round of increases before separating the thumb stitches since the thumb gusset was too short.  Then I cast on 2 less stitches over the gusset to keep the amount of stitches the same.  I still feel like there was too many stitches around the thumb, but my mods made it work.  On the hand, I removed one lace repeat and started the ribbing early and did 5 rows of ribbing before loosely binding off.

For the thumb, I skipped all of the extra rows the pattern has you knit before the ribbing.  I only did the initial row where you pick up stitches, then one more after that to do the decreases before doing 4 rounds of ribbing with the smaller needle size.  This snugged up the thumb nicely.

I don't like giving poor reviews for patterns since there's usually some silver lining, especially when this is probably more of a personal preference thing rather than an issue with the pattern (other than these tending large - which others on Ravelry have noted).  This pattern is well written and the finished mitts are cute.  I think these would work out just fine if you used a thinner weight yarn than the recommended aran weight.

Overall, I do like how they turned out with my modifications.  I think my friend will like them too, I just hope her hands aren't much narrower than mine.

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How are you folks doing?  Are you already for Christmas (if you celebrate)?  I hope you're finding some relaxing time too in all of this craziness.  I also hope you have a fantastic holiday and that you get to spend it with people that you love!  <3