Sigh.

I'm not in a good place with the ole string and sticks, to be honest (hence the lack of recent posts). Everywhere I look there are half-finished projects: pesky single, lonely socks, scarves without their edging, felted fabric pleading to be cut and sewn...you get the picture. And I go back up north to the Homeland in TEN days. I'm all a dither. And suffering from sock-fever...like Fiona (but she's just finished whereas I have a gazillion to go).

Yikes.

Anyway, I've managed to finish some things! My lovely friend Claire has left the fossil molluscs aside for now to have a little human and I knitted up a wee baby hat for her. The pattern was knitted flat and taken from the 'Vogue Knitting Beginner Basics' book (the BEST beginners' book I've found - taught myself to knit from it). With a cheery pom-pom added.

I'm currently battling with the beautifully tantalizing but infuriatingly incorrectly written Miss Potter/Beatrix mittens (Yarn Forward, Autumn 2007, left pic). Every blogger I've found who mentions this problem just says that they scratched their heads for a bit and then worked it out, rather than giving the solution, but I don't even have time to scratch my head!! AND the Yarn Forward errata links on their website don't work... :0(

Birdwoman from Ravelry (thanks Ravelry!!!) did help me out but she advises to knit even rows to the pattern but it didn't work when I did that. I don't even have time to think about why. Knit first, think later (?!).

I'll expand on this later - but for any hair-torn-out peeps in a similar emergency situation here's what you need to do...

Helen helped me work out the first confounding bit = for DD, slip the next two stitches knitwise TOGETHER, K1, pass these slipped stitches TOGETHER over the knit stitch. In my first attempt I slipped them individually (instructions are a bit ambiguous) and ended up with a messy line of stitches rather than the neat, tidy line you need...THANKS HELEN (aka, my helpful knitting elf)!!

For the rest:

Knit as pattern until thumb gusset.

R1 TG: K26, m1b, K2, m1b, K11

All even rows: K1, yo, k4, DD, K4, yo, K2, yo, K4, DD, k4, yo, K*, yo, K4, DD, K4, yo, K1 (where * is the remaining stitches, increasing by 2 every even row)

All odd rows: K26, m1b, K*, m1b, K13 (where * is the remaining stitches, increasing by 2 every odd row)

I think row 21 onwards is fine - but I'm not there yet...

And the worst bit - once I've done this mitten I'VE GOT TO DO THE OTHER ONE! Sob.

POSTSCRIPT: I've passed row 21 now - Round 1 of 'end of thumb gusset' should read:

K26, slip 1 stitch, transfer 19 onto waste yarn, slip stitch back and K2tog, K12. 

Comments

[Birdwoman]

Glad I could help a bit - it sounds like you figured it out though! They are beautiful mitts when they're done, though. Good luck with the rest of them!