Knitting Mittens

After one hat, two hats, big hat, small hat, I decided to try my hand at knitting mittens. Two reasons really, I would learn how to knit on double pointed needles, (A prereq. for making socks, and we can always use mittens around here.)

The pattern was for an adult. SO, me in my infinite wisdom and spacial brain pictured how to size it down to fit my middle one. All was going well until I hit this little bit of knit speak:

Rnd 1:(Note the number. We're not far into this process) K17, M1, k2, M1 k23-44 sts. K1 rnd.

Rnds 2, 4, 6. 8, 10, 12: Knit

So in my downsizing K17 translates to K10, (fine so far). M1 is make 1 stitch, again fine. And k23 -- for me is knit to the end of the round. The problem was what did/does K1 rnd mean?

For the first mitten I realized I was knitting 2 rounds between each increase row. But on second thought did the K1 rnd equal knitting the next round, which was implicity stated in the directions? I called around to my knitting friends and family. "Sounds like a redundancy in the directions," was the overwhelming conclusion.

No worries. In making this pair of mittens I just might have to knit three of them. In the end the mitten fit my sweetie just fine. All smiles, full of confidence I started mitten two. Piece of cake.

However, with this mitten I was smarter. I knew what the knit speak was telling me. No questions, just knit, knit, knit. I was a knitting machine. Waiting at the doctors, knitting, riding in the car, knitting, 10 minutes before the girls come home from school, knitting. Heaven.

Last night, I finished the body of the second and it didn't look quite right. I slipped my hand in only to discover it was a rather tight fit. I dug out the other mitten...

One mitten. Two mittens. Big Mitten. Small Mitten.

In the morning I had my littlest one try it on. It fits. And then I realized what I did, or in this case didn't do. I didn't knit all those extra rows.

It looks like I'll be knitting 4 mittens. Maybe more.