knitting neels

I’ve had students doing exams recently so I’m popping by with some phone photos until I make time to take better ones!

I finished up a pair of lined navy pants last week. There was a minor crisis when I realised, after I’d sewn in the lining and finished it up, that there was no denying the waist band was too large. So… I dismantled the whole thing and set it right. I’m glad I did because I’m very happy with the outcome.

I’ll talk more about it, my modifications and wonderings, when I show better photos. Pants are strange things. Needless to say, I made them to go with my new brown shoes and when I put them on, I realised I looked like one of Al Capone’s henchmen.

The other thing I have to show are mittens I finished during the summer. Actually, I spun the red yarn for the mittens last winter and knit them up fairly quickly. However, I found they were just too thin to wear on my bike and decided to give them a lining. Of course, this took me ages to get around to and when I did, made them so tight that my thumbs would go numb. Eventually I ripped them out and did a better job during some summer lull.

They’re pretty great. I used my own ‘hands up’ pattern and just extended it and worked sock toe decreases for the top of the mitten. I used Drops alpaca for the lining and knit it on 2mm needles. I picked up stitches along the top of the cuff on the inside.

That’s it for today!