Spinning and Selbu

I have started spinning some of the hand-painted pencil roving I bought at "Indigo Dragonfly" at the Knitter's Fair in Kitchener last weekend. I'm really liking how it is turning out. This colourway is "I Am Not A Shrimp".

I also finished my prototype Selbu mitten that I will be teaching on October 30 and November 13 at Myrtle Station Wool. I used white and black sock yarn. Except for the Latvian Braid, all of the patterns on the mitten are traditional Selbu patterns that were graphed by Terri Shea in "Selbuvotter" from Selbu mittens in the collection at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle, WA and from the collection of Annemor Sundbo. I used the "chained rose" design on the cuff

and on the back of the hand is the Selbu rose/four leaf clover pattern. I inserted a heart at the tip of the mitten.

The plaid pattern on the palm is my favourite.

And on the thumb is the chained rose again.

I did a bit of tweaking of the pattern after I knit the mitten and just need to figure out how to copy and paste the graph from my software into a word processing document. Then I'll finish writing it up.

Any two contrasting yarns would work with this pattern. Last winter, I used two colours of Briggs and Little Durasport on this pair of mittens.

I have also used a dark, hand-painted yarn as CC with white as the MC. I have also used black as the MC and a beautiful hand-painted yarn as the CC for a stained glass effect.

Once one has mastered two-coloured knitting, mittens are a great thing to knit as they require about 2/3 the number of stitches as a pair of socks. They're also very useful, warm and very fun to wear. Just be prepared for all the compliments you will receive - especially when you say, "Thank you! I knit them myself!".

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