Z is for Zippity-do-dah...

My oh my what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine heading my way
Zippity-do-dah zipping-ay

I am so happy to be done with this zany blog schedule.

Y is for Young and restless

Youth is perhaps not to blame for my yarn infidelity, but whatever the reason, my heart has certainly gone astray from this project.

Yarn-related pursuits that are not mittens:

This Civil War sock:

My car knitting

This Lucy Neatby sock from her free Craftsy class:

My bedtime knitting

This crazy crochet washcloth:

Starts with a thread mesh, then you crochet ruffles into it. Why not?

This beaded shawlette that I unearthed from deep in the unfinished object collection:

Sparkly

Yes, I have been faithless. Yet I do promise to finally complete the pair, at least by next fall, since they aren't just display pieces -my son really will be wearing them.

There you are

X is for Xerox

Ideally, the second mitten should be an exact copy of the first, but in that quixotic ideal universe, I didn't make any mistakes on the first mitten.

With that in mind, I'll be taking extra care to avoid the extra stitches and decreases that so vexed me the first time around.

My expectation is that I will find exciting new errors instead.

W is for What have We learned?

Well, the month is winding down and my will to keep working on these mittens is dwindling, but not yet extinguished. What have We learned in the course of these whacky and wonderful four weeks?

-Swatches lie.
-Math is hard
-I can't count
-The inner dimensions of the mitten are more important than the outer dimensions
-I can't knit two fully lined mittens from scratch in a month, even child-sized ones
-Wool is really nice to work with

V is for Vivisection

One of the issues with the completed mitten is that the outer thumb is not long enough to accommodate the inner thumb. My strategy to solve this vexing problem is to chop open the top, rip back to before the thumb decreases, put it back on needles and knit it up with fresh yarn until it's long enough.

I'm waiting until I've finished the second mitten to actually attempt this, so there are no pictures yet.

I may also chop the top of the inner mitten main body and knit it longer, because there's almost half an inch of space between its top and the top of the outer mitten, but we'll see; maybe that can be fixed with blocking instead of the more violent proposed mad surgery.

U is for Upside-down and inside-out

The inner mitten is complete, and can be tucked up inside the outer mitten.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of flaws that will need to be dealt with before the mitten is ultimately wearable, but that will be an undertaking for another day. For now, things are looking up.

T is for Troubleshooting Thumbs

Time for a helpful tip. Typically when picking up stitches around the thumb, whether they're for the thumb or the hand, you end up with a little hole between the picked up stitches and the original live stitches. This can be remedied somewhat by picking up an extra stitch in that space and decreasing it away on the next round, but sometimes that isn't enough and there's still a gaping hole.

The good news is that you have a built-in darning thread - the tail from where you joined the yarn. Before you go to weave in that end, use it to sew up the hole, and the trouble is gone.

Tada!

In other news, the top decreases worked out perfectly.