Three weeks ago I wrote a blog post about  my progress on Daughter Mittens, from Color by Kristin (Nicholas). These call for 4 colors of yarn for knitting. The way Kristin designed them, there is embroidery on top, using a color of yarn that was also used for knitting.

I was determined to knit with yarns I already had. I owned five colors of Kristin’s yarn, Julia by Nashua. Unfortunately, one was white and one was black, and they didn’t look right for the brights I wanted. There was a sort of dusty rose pink, too, but it was just too subtle/grayed to go with the other vibrant colors I wanted to use.

So I ended up with fuschia, periwinkle and deep teal (my color names, not necessarily Nashua’s), in the Julia yarn. And I chose one hot green yarn in Cascade Cloud 9, a 50/50 wool/angora yarn in worsted weight (from my stash).

I am really enjoying how these look. I realize that this is not brainless knitting, so it’s hard to find time to work on this project. Some can knit from charts when chatting, but I can not. I plug along when I have time alone.

Last Saturday I worked on it for a little while, and then today (Saturday again) for about an hour. It will happen when it does!

Right now I am working on the second cuff. Unfortunately, I have misplaced my camera so the photos here include the work I had finished last Saturday.

So what are the pictures of a bag and a present? A fifth color of yarn, which is a gift from my friend Cynthia (who is also planning at least one project from the Color by Kristin book.  She found some turquoise and got me a skein.

So my mitts get to have FIVE colors! I love this turquoise, I’m crushed to discover the color is discontinued already, just as I learn to love it. There are other blues in the line, but this is a really wonderful version.

Whoops! I just looked at the web photo, and you can barely tell the difference between the periwinkle knitting and the turquoise embroidery. Trust me, in person they are very different.

Can you see that I embroidered french knots on the inside of the tulip flower pattern? This is a different pattern than Kristin used, but I wanted to really accentuate the tulip shape. It reminds me of Turkish textiles, which inspire me very much.

I also tried French knots up and down the hot green twisted rib in the cuff. I found that 3 knots on one rib was too much. In the end I placed one knot at the very edge (just touching the teal line, on top of the hot green), for each twisted green rib. I like it. It’s subtle but pulls the knots together.

You can’t see it in this photo, but I also did one round of “duplicate stitch”  embroidery (imitates a knit stitch) just between the middle periwinkle ridge and the hot green background where the flower is. I like using an element (turquoise color in this case) three times or more, to make it look intentional.

I tried another duplicate stitch round but did not get halfway before I pulled it out. I felt it made the top ridge look too wide. You can see it in this photo around the right side at the top, attached to the long turquoise yarn end hanging to the right. It’s gone now!

Love ’em! The only down side is twisted rib. It looks really good, but twisting yarn means you are pushing and pulling the yarn where it does not want to go. Of course, I am using the least stretchy of the yarns for that one element, too!  

There is something satisfying to me about the stretch of standard knitted fabric on my needles. I like knitting with “ease” and twisting is anti-ease. However, I am letting go of that so that I can have a bit of beauty on a small project. It is so beautiful!

These will take a while. They are worth the wait.