Let Me Brag a Minute...

The proof is in the photos.

Two fair isle mittens knit, complete with thumbs. Though tempting to leave as baby-like hand socks, I pushed through and got those thumbs a home of their own. And most importantly, they fit!

Though there are a few minor issues in the final product, I hope they are happily received. It's a bummer I finished them right at the end of winter, but knowing the midwest weather, A Small Fox should probably get at least one chance to wear them before they need to be put away for next fall.

Actually though, I'm surprised they only took a month and a half to finish. Sometimes I can barely get a dishcloth done in that amount of time.

And if I learned one thing from this challenge (yes, a challenge - I jumped at the chance to knit for A Small Fox, despite never having knit full mittens, let alone fair isle!), it is that I am in love with fair isle knitting. It is definitely my kind of knitting.

I love needing to focus on what I'd doing. And the reward of seeing it build before my eyes is so motivating. It seems when I am knitting projects like this and charted dishcloths, I tend to make less mistakes (that is of course if I'm not at craft group watching LOST, but that's another story because I was able to knit perfectly fine in a dim room while watching the Godfather 2 and actually keep my eyes on the screen almost constantly). I guess that's probably because I can very clearly see a mistake I make, and can therefore fix it almost immediately.

Now I'm not saying these mitts were without problem. As I was nearing the end I twice needed to rip out several rows in the same night. Funny story - the first time, I was holding them by a DPN with only a couple stitches on it, and what happened, well of course they slipped off completely. But stupid me immediately grabbed them to keep from falling...by the live yarn end. Yikes! Stitches undone galore and as I tried to repick them up, I dropped a stitch, therefore needing to tear back a few rows to get everything right.

But all in all, I feel like I do better when working on projects like this.

So in the past few weeks my Ravelry queue has been filling up with fair isle patterns. More mittens than I could possibly wear. Sweaters (scarily knit up in fingering weight yarn). Pillows. I'm anxious to pick my next project, but then again I'm conflicted because I'm really hesitant to buy new yarn right now. I so want to stick with my goal of clearing out my stash, so fair isle knitting might be put off for awhile until A - the yarn stash decreases more and B - I get the balls to knit a sweater out of fingering weight.