First KAL Finished YAY me!

Well for my first KAL, I think I did alright!  I had a lot of fun doing this and enjoyed the discussion boards.  The project was a small one and knit level - intermediate - I didn't want to overwhelm myself on my first KAL and go to far outside of my experience level.  I look at each pattern as an opportunity to learn something new, within reason of course LOL

The first mitt went pretty quick, while the right mitt took me a bit longer.  Not entirely sure why, And of course the rounds I tinked back for the left mitt stands out in neon lights to me. Might have been better off frogging it back and doing it again, but this is acceptable and isn't making my OCD twitch to bad - just a quick tick here and there,

There is a shawl KAL and this fingerless mitts KAL to choose from. A friend of mine has been knitting them up lately and they are beautiful and tweaked my interest, Shawls require more yarn than mitts.  I've decided that new projects need to come from my stash whenever and where ever possible, and there just wasn't enough for the shawl.  Least with the fingerless mitts, I've made mitts before, even wrote my own pattern - so there is a base to work from there.  AND I had more than enough of this yarn for the project  I didn't even use the whole skein for these mitts

The cuff is really unusual and unique.  There are a gazillion 1x1 cable stitches in there - drove me a bit batty to do that many itty bitty cable stitches.  It creates a comfortable fit around the wrists that goes further up the arm and covers more area.  Also goes down the fingers just to the knuckles.  One thing I did not do was change needle sizes for the ribbing at the top and for the thumb.  I would rather it be larger than way to tight - larger is easy to fix with a bit of elastic

I do have smaller hands than most adults.  I can wear children's gloves and mitts comfortably.  I made these in the size that it was written for with no modifications.  Shocking right? I actually did not make one modification LOL    You can see how the mitts are a bit long for my hand as the pattern gets a bit lost fitting my hand - they do not feel overly large or loose - quite comfy actually.   The decision to use US2 for the thumb was ideal.  I believe that if I had changed needle size, it would be way to snug around the thumb



The pattern is very delicate and feminine without being girly.  I've been finding myself drawn towards lacy and cable patterns lately.  Gives you just enough of a challenge without it to much over the top or boring.

The designer Qianer Huang has some beautiful patterns and I'll be keeping my eyes open for other KALs that she has going on.  First I want to finish the socks I stopped half way through and get back to my blanket.  Starting to feel a bit guilty about that, although having more and more socks speaks louder than my guilt LOL