Saturday, April 5, 2008

FO: Malabrigo Madness Fetching

Cross posted at Sally Comes Unraveled and Year Long Gift-A-Long.

I've finally knit my first Fetching, my one and only Malabrigo March project for Ravelry. (Of course, I forgot to add the project to the thread so I could qualify for the prizes. At least I got a Christmas gift done.)

I used about half a skein of Malabrigo Worsted in Purple Mystery (I think) and US size 5 aluminum Boye dpns.

I like the pattern for the must part, although the bind off leaves something to be desired. I admit I screwed up the first time because I ended up with the wrong number of stitches at the end. (And I may have been a off stitch on the second one.) It's hard to tell the difference, so I'm not worrying about it. The main thing is that the bind off curls.


I also realized that they don't cover as much of my hand as my Knucks, which truly makes them "hand warmers" and not fingerless gloves. It's always a conundrum. You want to cover your fingers because they're cold, but its hard to do anything with your hands because your fingers are covered. I know there are convertable mittens out there, but I'm still looking for new ideas.

I like the thumb. At first I thought it was Elizabeth Zimmerman's afterthought thumb, but I looked it up, and her thumb actually involves steeking.

Instead, you knit waste yarn where you want the thumb, and then remove it and pick up the thumb.

This is what it looked like before I removed the waste yarn. I picked up the stitches ahead of time so I wouldn't have to worry about them when the waste yarn was removed:


Here it is after the waste yarn was removed, and stitched were picked up on either side of the hole:


Now I'm deciding what to do with the other half of the Malabrigo. I'm not sure I want Fetching, but I do want something for myself. Maybe Calorimetry?

2 comments:

laughing purple goldfish said...

I knit my first pair of fetching recently too... same thing here... loved the thumb work, but the bind off was weird and they are a bit too short

I ended up making them longer, and working a normal bind off, and adding a crochet edge

love the purple

Sara said...

Looks nice! If you block it the bind off does not curl and looks lovely.