Selbuvotter

I first saw this type of mitten on the Yarn Harlot's blog, and I thought "I could never make those." But then, the Interweave Knits website started talking about "knitting fearlessly", and I saw some of these mittens on Ravelry, and I was inspired. I ordered the book Selbuvotter: Biography of a Knitting Tradition by Terri Shea, and I found the story of the mittens very intriguing. Combine my intrigue, my Scandinavian heritage, and my desire to learn something new, and I have a new favorite thing to knit. Well, actually, everything that I knit for the first time becomes my new favorite thing to knit. This is my current favorite thing, I guess.

I finished my first pair a couple days ago, and here they are, all washed and blocked:


I found the patterns to be well done, although there are several errata, and if you are going to make some, check the website first so you don't get half-way in and find your chart doesn't work out. The trick was figuring out the tension with the colorwork, which I think went well after the first cuff. The aspect of these that I found challenging for both mittens, and I'm sure will continue to give me grief, is the palm-side of the thumb. There aren't charts for that part, and you have to figure out how to "continue in pattern." This is a lot to wrap my brain around, and let's just say there's a reason I didn't photograph the inside of the thumbs.

Pattern: NHM #9
Yarn: KnitPicks Palette in Red and Cream (about 3/4 ball of each.)
Needles: US Size 3 dpns. I got about 8 stitches to the inch in the colorwork pattern.

Incidentally, I soaked them in Dr. Bronner's Castille Soap with the Lavendar scent, and they are not only pretty, but they smell wonderful, too. Too bad there aren't scratch-and-sniff java scripts for blogs.