A New Year and Some New Projects

I started the new year by knitting a swatch of Frankie Brown's Ten Stitch blanket. 

I want to make a rectangular one so made the first segment twice as long. I now don't think that will create the dimensions I want but I will keep knitting for practice. This other side shows the ridge created when joining one edge to another.

To make the miters to turn the corners, there are a series of short rows. I'm working on internalizing the steps so I don't have to keep referring to the modified instruction sheet. I'm using sock yarn and 3.25mm needles to get a nice squishy feel.

Today on my Crafternoon Zoom chat I worked on the whitework band sampler. I worked at the dining room table with the lamp which made working white on white much easier. Skip was then able to watch NFL football in the family room while he ate his lunch.

I started close to the top so I could get two projects out of the banding that I bought. I may just hemstitch the top and get some bellpull hardware. I still need to stitch the satin stitch line above the scotch stitching which matches the one below it.

The eyelets in the middle of the diamonds are slightly different from Algerian eyelets.

This hasn't been a difficult project but definitely not stitching I'll do whilst reclining and watching TV.

I did, however, finish one Latvian mitten (except the thumb). I will knit the other mitten before I tackle the thumbs.

I like the picot edge on the bottom. The Latvian braid is my modification. I also grafted the top together when I had decreased to 14 remaining stitches. I prefer the look to a pointy top.

Unlike Nordic mittens I've knit, Latvian mittens' palms are the same pattern as the back.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I will remove the yellow waste yarn which will leave live stitches above and below the thumb hole. They will get picked up and I'll knit the thumb.

My challenge will be to not knit the thumbs too tightly. Normally, I do stranded knitting inside out so the floats are at their widest but that's really hard to do on the thumb. I am going to try it though. Otherwise, if I knit it right side out, I'll go up a needle size and be extra careful when I go from one needle to the next to keep my floats loose.