Toasty warm gloves and mittens

Well how are you all getting on in the autumnal weather and dark evenings? I find I don't sew much when I get home from work, it's just too dark to see the thread against the fabric. Maybe that's because I was working on a dark green wool jacket, yet to be blogged. I'll need some better weather and light before getting half decent photos of it but I only finished it on Sunday.

After my first knitted 'thing' in years, I've been busy knitting more! I bought a knitting pattern from Etsy for gloves, mittens and fingerless gloves with the convertible flip top. It's for double knitting wool so I went to John Lewis and bought some Rowan Tweed double knitting wool and some knitting needles and this is the result! 

Some tweedy gloves! It's a lovely wool to knit with even if I found knitting the fingers a bit fiddly to do. Here's more of a close-up of one glove so you can see the tweedy colours. The colour is black with pale grey or white and caramel flecks going through it. 

Then I decided to knit some mittens, something I haven't worn since I was a child but I did hear somewhere that mittens are warmer than gloves. Wanted to test that theory out! Anyone with a bit of common sense would say I should have started with the easier mittens project and then gone on to the slightly more fiddly project of gloves but...hey ho, what's logic got to do with it!

Again, I used Rowan Tweed double knitting wool. This is a 100% wool yarn and it's lovely to knit with. The mittens are a dark maroon colour with flecks of red and green in them. So what's the verdict on the warmth factor? The mittens may actually be warmer than gloves but knitted anything is just not wind proof so not as warm as fleece or Thinsulate gloves but they're fine at the moment. I still think I'll be wearing the usual winter requirement of two pairs of gloves to feel toasty!

This is not a knitting blog and I'll get back to my sewing soon. I've actually downloaded Named's Jamie jeans pattern and I'm just making the necessary adjustments to the pattern pieces before cutting out some pre-washed stretch denim I bought from Edinburgh Fabrics a couple of weeks ago.

I've also signed up to Ravelry so you never know, I might move on from gloves and mittens and knit something more substantial...so what's on your knitting needles at the moment?

Crikey! I'm knitting....

I know, I'm first and foremost a proud sewist and love sewing clothes for myself and here I am...knitting. Knitting!!!!! Well, I'll give you a couple of minutes to get over the shock of it all. Maybe it's the dark nights or something, but there it is.

There is a story behind how all this came to pass. A colleague went on summer holiday to the Faroe Islands and brought me back a ball of wool and a book on Fair Isle knitting. The gauntlet had been flung down! How could I NOT knit something. Also in the summer I went on my first sewing bloggers meet-up in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Some lovely ladies were helping visitors get to grips with knitting and they had some lovely wool cowls. I took one of their cowl patterns and worked myself up to the idea of knitting it. It took a few months!

Gives you an idea how long it is

It's been years since I knitted anything but I thought I'd like the challenge of a mini-project in knitting to take with me when I spent the weekend with my family and was physically parted from my sewing machine and overlocker. Idle hands, and all that!

Lovely golden trees in the communal garden

I bought Rowan Big Wool Colour in Jamboree colourway from John Lewis which has a high wool content, 96% wool and 4% polyamide, just enough man-made content to discourage our 'pet moths'. Hopefully. The knitting needles (10mm) are huge! It didn't take long to knit up the 4 balls of wool but it did take another fortnight to sew in the ends and sew up the one seam to change it from a scarf to a cowl. Then of course, there's finding daylight time to take photos but that's not going to change anytime soon! 

Beautiful carpet of golden fallen leaves

So, to round it all up, I'm very pleased with my new wool cowl and it will go with my new (when I get it finished) forest green jacket. It was lovely and toasty when I was outside taking these photos so that's good to know! What next? Well, I skulked about on Etsy and bought a knitting pattern for gloves/mittens/convertibles (not a type of car, they're fingerless gloves or mittens with a flip top on them). I've just finished knitting the first glove and done some rib on the second. I don't think I'm a knitter at all but I have enjoyed these small projects so far. Maybe I'm a seasonal winter knitter! What about you, do you take up the knitting needles in autumn and lay them down in spring?
 

And such a blue sky