Mitten Class: Notes

This is a collection of various notes and replies to questions onlist that I thought would be helpful. Let me know if there's something that should be here and isn't!

The Importance of Uniform Spinning
From Claudia: "This is a good place to talk about uniformity in handspun. Lots of us aren't into that, and although that is very charming while making the yarn, it turns out to be a problem when trying to match two things sizewize. So, I suggest the following: keep an eye on the thickness of your yarn and try to match certain thicknesses to the same area in both mittens. With this in mind, I suggest that you spin up 20-30 yards of yarn as even as you can make it and plan on using that for BOTH thumbs, because..and you will love this , it is more important to have the thumbs FEEL the same on the inside than the rest of the mitten."

Using Singles for the Mittens
From Claudia: "And........have you considered using just a single ply of your yarn to knit with just so you can do this class? If it isn't highly twisted, skein up a bit and wash it and then finish it off by cooking it in water in the microwave till the water JUST boils. Let it cool down and then squeeze it out and let dry flat. Lots of folks use singles yarns ...the key is to make sure there isn't a whole lot of overtwist in the yarn (I think the angle of twist to shoot for was under 20* according to the illustrative Debbie Bodmer's post a week or so back on the Spin-List)."

Making Stitches
From Claudia: "Pick up an empty needle to MAKE ONE stitch.....with the yarn that is coming out of the stitch on the right needle, make a loop of yarn and (give it a backwards twist (looks like a half hitch) and put it on the EMPTY needle, knit that lonely stitch before the marker from the left needle....then there are no other stitches to knit, so MAKE ONE , again, as per the instructions by making that loop of yarn and placing it on the needle with the other M1 and the knitted stitch...now slip your marker off the left needle and onto the right one and knit across the stitches to the end of that needle.

When you examine what you have done, you should see (from right to left) a MADE STITCH, a Knit stitch, a MADE STITCH, the marker, then all the rest of the stitches knit."

Pesky Extra Stitches
From Claudia: "You aren't doing anything wrong. The directions are not as clear as they could be (directions never are!!! They are merely guidelines).

If you have achieved the TOTAL Number of stitches needed for your last round of the hand before you divide stitches for the gusset, then you have succeeded.

You will find, I suspect, that if you had moved your marker in the first increase round so it nestled between the second increased stitch and the stitch following (between stitches 3 and 4), then you would find that your gusset had the 13 sts on it that the pattern specified. Right now you can simply just put the first 13 sts on your waste yarn....if you count the rest of the stitches, you should have 35 sts NOT on your waste yarn, and when you add in one more stitch as you rejoin the knitting over the hole for the thumb, you will have the required-for-your-size 36 sts."

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