A LITTLE PROTECTION....

A little protection goes a long way....and actually, this is protection to the max!  After a deer ate the blooms from our potted rose we moved it to our second floor balcony, where it lives a happy, protected life and rewards our care with oodles of blooms!

There has been some knitting lately.  Nine dishcloths for the Beginners Learn to Knit Class.  And now a nice pair of mittens for a friend.  Here's the "thumb" side:

 And here's the top of the hand side.  Spot the mistake?

This will be easy to fix.  I'll simply run a short length of white yarn through a few stitches on the inside of the mitt, do a duplicate stitch where one white one is missing, and run the yarn through a few more stitches to fasten it.

I knit these mitts two handed on every third row, knitting two stitches with the blue yarn on my right hand and then one stitch with the white yarn on my left hand.  They will be very warm because the blue yarn is a two-ply Briggs and Little 100% wool. (Briggs & Little, 3500 Route 635, Harvey, York County, New Brunswick, E6K 1J8, (506) 366-5438.)

We were in a display centre in St. Anthony, Newfoundland.  It told the story of a well-loved doctor in the history of Newfoundland.  In the gift gallery there were many wonderful needlepoint pictures of all sizes.  We bought a small one for our coffee table as a remembrance of our time in Newfoundland.  There were also several bins of Briggs and Little yarn.  YUM!!!  I bought four skeins of 4.5 ounces each, for just $4.99 per skein.  Two this blue and two a lighter blue.  I didn't know what I'd use them for, so I was quite restrained in my buying.  Later I thought, At that price, I should have bought a suitcase full!

This mitten pattern did not have a gusset for the thumb.  Instead when you got to where the thumb should start the pattern directed you to knit 10 stitches with waste yarn, then slip those 10 stitches back on the left hand needle and reknit them with the working yarn.  I thought that was an easy way to save the stitches for the thumb.

But when I worked the thumbs I had problems with holes on either side of the thumb.  The stitches below and above the waste yarn were fine, but to either side there were loose stitches.  I'll have to try doing this on a sample piece and figure out a way to avoid those holes.  Unless someone reading this has a solution?  I'd love to hear how you handle that!