Komet!!!!

I have a story to tell you about how lovely and warm and kind the knitting community is (and I need it after the Bobica debacle... another time perhaps...). When we went to Yarndale the first place that we needed to go, after checking out the stall with Verity's yarn on, was the Easyknits stall. I bought a beautiful yarn from there last year that still hasn't been made into anything... This year I was determined to be sensible and not spend the inheritance and although I loved everything there was nothing that I needed. So I hung around whilst Verity copped a good feel, had a chat with other customers, got out the way when I was needed and generally tried not to make a nuisance of myself. Until a skein caught my eye. It was hanging up behind the till and it was the most perfect colour in the world - neon yellow or is it neon green? No it's yellow. Nah. Green. NOBODY KNOWS! I said to the fella, can you should me where that is on the stall and he showed me the yarn but to my disappointment and eternal heartbreak, the colour wasn't there. Turned out he'd used that base to dye into a rainbow just to look bloody beautiful on his stall. He could sense my turmoil and without even thinking he grabbed the skein off the rainbow hooks and presented it to me. WHAT A MAN! And here's the best photo I have of it before it was balled: 

Right there in the middle. See it? AMAZING!


Later that night Christ took me and the yarn to dinner.

 

And for a few days I carried it around with me - stroking it, wearing it as a neck warmer, showing it off. And then life got in the way, I left it at Chris's house and I got on with work. But something came over me a couple of weeks ago and I knew what I had to make with it - a pair of Komet fingerless mitts.  

 

Now, you might be able to tell that those are socks. I've deffo spoken on the blog about them before but I can't find it, I need to get much more creative with my labels don't I? If not, I may have spoken about them in the shop with you - I'll do it again don't worry. 

Early on in my knitting career I was a student and contrary to popular belief I had loads of bloody money. I'd discovered this new website - Ravelry - and everybody on there was on about how beautiful hand dyed yarn was and I had to get my hands on some. I started with this lady: Angels and Elephants. And bought some of that very colourway:

I look at that now and find it really uninspiring but at the time this was the most amazing wool. And I kept it for a long time trying to work out the perfect pattern for it. Then I found Komet and something made me do it toe up which was the first time I'd done that. It took me forever! And I finished them in the middle of summer. Put them on my little feeties and they fitted perfectly. But it was too warm to I set them on the side and carried on with my day. In the meantime Cazza, the sister, was down and trying to be helpful and collecting stuff for the wash. She collected my socks. I can't even bring myself to tell you what came next, it's just too painful. 

I've been meaning to get back to the Komet pattern ever since then and this seemed like the perfect idea but I didn't want to 'waste' it on socks - that have to be half hidden in shoes and washed all the time - so I've 'wasted' it on gloves that I don't wear often because I'm either here or on the bus or at home and I smoke on the way to any of those places (and I hate wearing gloves when I smoke). But still. I can show them off when they're hanging around in my bag.

 

That's what I look like when I realise I can take a photo with my elbow! My phone has run out of juice apparently. Blame Chris. 

So, how did I make a sock pattern into a fingerless mitt pattern? Dead easy actually. Cast on the same amount and knit for as long as you like - obvs without putting a heel in... Then at the point when you want your thumb you use a spare bit of wool to knit 9/10 stitches, break yarn, slip those sts back onto the left needle and carry on knitting with your original yarn. Then when you get to the end of the glove you can pick out the spare yarn and it will leave you live stitches at above and below it, get them on your needles, pick up a few at either side and knit round and round and round maybe in a rib like I did. Boom. 

Thinking about it I don't actually know why I've told you all this but I have, and with the spare blog that I've got waiting to go up I only actually have to write 7 more before I've hit my target of blogging twice a week all year (or eight times a month). That's pretty amazing seeing as I completely lost my mojo in September/October.

Love Eleanor. xxx