My friend Kevin, who has visited Ireland several times, bought four mitten kits by mistake, thinking they were actually mittens. I cannot account for how he did it. He asked me for help. I said I'd knit them, thinking I'd learn a lot.
I've been knitting for 60 or so years and I've never done mittens, gloves or socks, and I suppose I now can take mittens off that list. I agreed to do it and got the wool from Kev in January and it's now September and I'm just finishing them. I rarely make any knitted piece from a pattern because I enjoy designing the fabric. I typically make very simple shapes that show off the colors and textures of the yarns and stitches. So counting stitches and making the numbers of stitches and rows come out "right" is a challenge. I learned a lot. Most of that learning came from the mushuggenah pattern which was rather wildly inaccurate. I had to re-write it after ripping out large sections of mitten and re-counting everything. I wrote to the company hoping they had an updated and corrected version but they didn't bother responding. So much for Irish wool companies.
There were no illustrations with the instructions, resulting in my sewing the flip tops on the wrong way. I was a bit freaked out that I found out right before I was going to give them to Kevin, but I was very glad that he did not give them as Christmas gifts to his loved ones with that fatal flaw. With more hours of work I'm done and Kevin will have his hand knit Irish mittens. As you may guess, I consider this particular pattern to be a colossal fail. And of course it has reinforced my conviction to go my own way and not follow the instructions of others, no matter how tempting it might be. For beginners: if you do want to follow patterns, check to see if they have updates or corrections before you begin knitting and insist on illustrations so that you can SEE what you are making.
The yarn is fabulous - classic wool that is stinky and scratchy and utterly beautiful.
I'm always impressed with pattern designers who can do things like make a thumb without making a separate piece, but just figuring out how to develop the short rows within the context of the mitten shape. I liked doing the thumb all eight times.
If you want to see more everyday photos of what I am doing I post frequently on Instagram @journalofathousandlives
