Thrummed mittens

Looks like a sleepy sheep in the house!

I grew up with hand-made mittens.  I hate to admit I went through a phase where I really wanted gloves, preferably store-bought gloves.  My mom broke down in late elementary school and bought me a pair of gloves.  I promptly lost a glove, so back to mittens it was.  A few years later my mom did make me a pair of gloves - her first pair of gloves, I believe, which I still have.  They shrank quite a bit through the years so I now wear them under a pair of work gloves for winter outdoor chores.  They make a perfect (and warm!) liner.

After moving to NY, where it actually gets cold in the winter, I introduced my husband to the wonders of mittens.  Poor guy never had mittens growing up!  Granted he didn't really need them, but I felt sorry for him and asked my mom to make him a pair.  I am happy to say that he is now become a converted mitten-wearer:)  My mom has been keeping us well stocked with mittens so I never really had a need to make them.  This fall though, I started perusing mitten patterns on Ravelry and I found these thrummed mittens.  I was immediately smitten with the mittens!  They looked so delightfully warm and cozy!

I decided the mittens would make a good Christmas present for my husband.  Yes, this was the first pair of mittens I attempted, and yes, my first pair of mittens were thrummed mittens.

Working notes:

• I looked at multiple sites for adding thrums.  Some call for folding the ends of the rowing under before incorporating each thrum.  I decided to go the easier route and just fold each piece of roving in half over the needle.  I also dropped the yarn when adding each thrum* instead of both knitting the yarn and the thrum.  My husband has been told to be careful not to tug on the thrums so they don't come undone and expose live stitches!
• When making the thumb gusset I did not take into account the added stitches and did not adjust the pattern accordingly.  Instead of the thrums making a diagonal line they ended up in a vertical line.  By the time I noticed what was going on, I was on the third row of adding thrums and did not want to undo the whole thing.  My husband swears it doesn't bother him, but I am more than a little annoyed by it.  This will forever be the right hand mitten so that the vertical stripes will be on the palm!

Broken pattern on palm:(

Except for the broken pattern in the first mitten, it went fairly well!  I did end up with huge holes at the thumb after I completed the thumb, but managed to sew them together while working in the ends.  I hope!  I also hope that any holes will be covered up as the roving starts to felt.

You can also see that the first two rows in the thrum pattern look a little plain.  I did not see the instructions to either knit just the thrum and I started out with knitting both the yarn and thrum.  If you do that, you should knit through the back of the loop in the subsequent row which I did not see.  Going forward I just dropped the yarn each time I added a thrum.

Things started going wrong with the second mitten and I am still not sure what happened.  Let's start with what I did right with it first!

I tried as much as possible to take into account the thumb gusset increases and keeping to the pattern.  It could be better, but it is 100% better than the first mitten.  All the weirdness is in the thumb gusset itself - the top and bottom of the mitten itself remain nicely in pattern.

The palm on the second mitten remained nicely in pattern!

Things started going horribly wrong at the very top though.  As I was doing the final decreases, I noticed two dropped stitches.  They were in the second to the last row so I just picked them up on one of the needles and continued.  I am still trying to decide how that happened, since I kept counting the whole time.  What's even worse is that as I was working in the end, I saw two more dropped stitches!  Again, I have no idea what happened.  I picked them up with the end that I was working in and hope that it will be enough to keep them from running.

The second strange thing I observed was when attaching the thumb.  Somehow instead of ending up with holes/stretched out stitches were I attached the thumb, I ended up with a large hole.  It's almost as if I did not pick up the correct stitches and missed picking up two.  That hole ended up being darned at the very end as the ends were finished off.  I hope both "patches" hold.

Palms up - that vertical stripes bothers me whenever I see them! 

Palms up (and mittens crossed from the picture above)

Overall this was a fun project to make!  In retrospect maybe these are good first mittens since the fit is not all that important.  I am sure the roving will adapt to the hands nicely and the gloves will fit perfectly.  They are delightfully soft and squishy and just in time for a cold spell!

Pulling apart the roving was much more difficult than I had anticipated!  I figured out the best way to do it as I went along, but I almost think that was my least favorite part about making these mittens.

The first mitten was actually completed before Christmas.  For a while I was worried that he would get a gift on the needles!  I did have him try on the first mitten before the thumb was picked up and thus ruining the surprise.  Wondering if they would fit was killing me though!  It also allowed me to work on the thumb in the evening, which is the main reason I was able to finish the first mitten before Christmas.  The second mitten followed a few days later.  It helped that I was able to start the second mitten before Christmas.

The mittens passed with flying colors (and toasty hands!) during our recent cold spell.  The only drawback is even less manual dexterity than you normally get with mittens as my husband found out the first time he tried to pick up the keys!

*I know I did not use "real" thrums, but since the mittens are called thrummed mittens, I will call my bits of roving thrums.  Since I am not a spinner, I am also not sure if I am using the term roving correctly.