Monday, February 2, 2009

Found My Mittens

Kate Gilbert is a goddess among knit designers. When my hard drive crashed, I lost my mittens, namely Bird in Hand and Wintergreen. Data recovery failed to recover them (how I cried), but she sent me new copies. Thank you, Kate! I'd like to dedicate my entry for today's Annual (Silent) Poetry Reading to her.
The three little kittens
they lost their mittens
and they began to cry
                 – Traditional
By a happy synchronicity, I've been working on a f-f-felted door mitten, from black Patons Classic Wool. The nice thing about door mittens is one needs only one (unless one has more doors than I). Here it is before and after f-f-felting, with one of my mittens (from a swap with Deb) for scale. There's a bit of green crochet cotton around the opening to help the edge felt evenly.

Door mitten before felting   Door mitten after felting

The project was inspired by the Felted Door Mitten by Two Old Bags. I didn't use a pattern, just knit a mitten with exaggerated vertical dimensions to compensate for differential shrinkage and f-f-felted it. The result could be a serviceable oven mitt or hotpad, but this was intended to be decorative, and will be embellished accordingly just as soon as such can be found.

6 comments:

Daniele said...

Those came out great! Wonderful idea. Thanks for sharing Ina!

Bezzie said...

Silly me I had to look at the pattern because I didn't understand what a "door mitten" was. I thought it was something you'd wear answering the door--but I use both hands for that! Ha ha!

Anonymous said...

Aww, NICE designer!

CrazyFiberLady said...

that's nice that Kate replaced the pattern.

love the f-f-felted door mitten!

Kim said...

That was nice of Kate G to replace the lost patterns. I'm seeing mittens in so many posts lately. Having never knit a pair fo rmyself, I'm taking it as a sign that I should knit mittens. Cool door mitten!

craftivore said...

Wow, if even someone as techie as you can lose their patterns, I'm feeling the backup urge. How nice that they were replaced for you! I didn't know what a door mitten was either, I can't wait to see how you're going to embellish yours.