Wow! Everyone loves my mittens! Thank you to those kind readers who took the trouble to email me about them. I love them too – it’s a great pattern – available from Tiny Owl Knits . And great news too – I’ll be featuring an interview with their designer, Stephanie of Tiny Owl Knits in next month’s magazine – her patterns are so fantastical and original I’m really excited to learn more about her ideas and inspirations.
A number of people have also asked about Swiss Darning – also known as duplicate stitch. I like to use this method if I’m knitting an isolated motif – particularly in a hard-wearing items such as these mittens. You knit the base first and then stitch the motif onto it, so there’s no carrying yarn across the back or twisting together at edges where potentially holes may form with wear. I’ve found a good tutorial for those who are interested in learning this technique. It’s an old tutorial on The Purl Bee. Just Click here to visit where you’ll find some great step-by-step instructions. I’d just add one proviso – I don’t mark the stitches before hand, but count from the knitting chart, rather as you would with counted cross stitch.
Off to walk Ben now – it’s a cold rainy day here so he has regained all his energy that he lost in last week’s heatwave. We’ll head up to the woods to look for acorns, hazelnuts and the last of the blackberries… back soon!
I love those gloves. I was really suprised to hear they were designed by Stephanie, I saw her perform live last year and she has a beautiful voice, I met her afterwards and she was also very lovely and has a great sense of style.
kandi x
Wow, they really are the most adorable mittens I've ever seen x
I used to do this on the front of my children's hand knitted winter woolies when they were young, but never knew it had a name. How interesting! 🙂
Hugs
Jenny