Tread Lightly

Finally! Another one of these! I've been finishing projects, I've just been terrible about taking photos of them. At any case, here's at least one.



I made these mittens for my mom's birthday. She, for some horrible reason loves the color orange. Even the dreaded burnt orange. It was horribly painful to knit these consequentially... Perhaps next year she'll get a much better pair in crimson.

All jokes aside, these really were a bit frustrating to knit. For one thing, I'm the queen of loose gauge, so I had to drop down to a size one needle to make these fit a normal human being. Even that wasn't quite enough- after knitting and frogging more times than I care to count, I finally cast on 34 stitches. I wasn't planning on knitting the fingerlings that were on the original pattern (called Treads), but if I had, it would been a total headache with math. Yikes. The pattern itself was lovely- extremely easy to understand, even the lateral braid section.



The yarn, on the other hand, was miserable. I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran and it sucked. It fuzzed like crazy, and the balls it came in tangled like no other, as well as having several portions where one or two of the plies were broken. I hated working with it. Really, I would have been happier with the entire experience if I had simply used Caron Simply Soft- at least the quality is reflected in the price. The Cashmerino Aran is a yarn I will never purchase again.



All in all, I really think my mom will love these. She saw me working on them and repeatedly asked me if they were for her ("No. It's a tea cozy." was my most frequent response), so I'm taking that as a good sign. Besides, even if she doesn't like it, I certainly do! And I could always overdye them out of that hideous color...