A Little Downton, A Little Island…
I have had the Downton Cowl, by Shannon Cook, on the needles for a ridiculously long time. I blame all the knitalongs for distracting me. Anyway, while traveling over the holidays, I saw the perfect opportunity to get some accessories off the needles. Behold, many photos of greenish, blue yarn and one of my favorite people:
I love the Lowlands color way so much I used another skein for the Rathtrevor Mitts by Jane Richmond. Is anything more beautiful than these colors? It looks like the recessed areas of a blue juniper, hence the name Juniper Mitts.
These did require some modifications to fit my arms and style of knitting. I reduced my cast on stitches by 6 and evenly decreased 4 more on the first stockinette row. This was a little awkward since that row calls for a few increases, but the increases are part of the shaping and my decreases were made evenly to keep the stockinette from being super floppy. Maybe I didn’t handle it the best way, but it looks great and they fit so I am satisfied.
In keeping with the downsizing, I only increased for the thumb until there were 11 stitches between markers. On the second round of the thumb, I knit the two stitches I had picked up together.
I lengthened the hand portion a bit by knitting 5 extra rows.
Don’t these two make a great set?
Love how they turned out and that color is stunning!!! So pretty! Love the pics too!
That color is really great! I love the mitts and cowl together. I'm so impressed by how well you know yourself as a knitter. I frequently find myself having to undo the same silly mistakes because I don't always think ahead in a pattern to how I can compensate for gauge issues and the like.
I love both of those projects! Those arm warmers look so nice and cozy. Great color choice. I keep hearing (or reading) about Settlers of Catan! I just got hooked on Ticket to Ride, but maybe I should check SoC out…
What a gorgeous set! I love the colour.
Thank you, Shannon. I really do appreciate the Downton pattern. It adds instant class to my "look" when I wear it. It took me a while to finish knitting it, but I reserved my favorite colorway for it and it was so worth it.
Oh Vanessa, I am constantly re-knitting too. In fact, I was almost to the thumb on the mitts when I realized they were too big for me. All I can say is it's a good thing I knit (and re-knit) fast. I had no problems with sizing on the cowl, but I did consider knitting more repeats like yours, but I didn't have enough yarn.
I've read about ticket to ride, too. I was trying to decide which one to get my husband. It was a toss up between those two and Pandemic. In the end, Target had Settlers. It is a lot of fun.
Thank you, Sarah! Madelinetosh definitely lives up to the hype.
they are lovely and i really like the colorway.