The Opadoo

In case you were wondering, I did finish all eight tentacles.

What: Lady in pink / Christelle Nihoul

How: Circular needle 2.0 mm

From: Hélène Magnusson Love Story Einband + Drops Lace, 8 + 24 g

This project didn't go as planned.

But let's start at the beginning. When I decided to challenge myself by taking part in the Opadoo challenge of Indie Design Gift-A-long I wanted to make it as easy as possible. I chose the projects for all eight categories based on difficulty and yardage. I wanted to finish the challenge fast.

So I bumbed into this fingerless mitts design that had a very low yardage. Plus the pictures on the pattern page were super sweet so I was sold. If you check out the pattern on Ravelry you'll see that I've tried to copycat those pics here. Although, the non-light of December tried to kill the mood.

So yes. The pattern has a very low yardage but I didn't stop to think that knitting lace weight mitts might not be the fastest or easiest project possible. Perhaps I'll keep it in mind next time.

Besides working with small needles and thin yarn hurting my hands the project had other problems. The way the colors change in the design looks gorgeous but it means working stranded color works with two lace weight yarns and long floats behind lace. With my chosen yarns it turned out a bit messy. It did tidy up a bit in blocking but not completely.

The next hurdle was the thumb gusset. This was my first time trying out an Indian thumb gusset that's said to fit the hands especially well. And it really does. The problem was that for the life of me I couldn't get the gusset to look right by following the pattern. Designing myself, I've come to see that most problems people have with knitting patterns is the lack of trust in the pattern. Most issues work themselves out if you just follow the pattern exactly as it is written. I tried that here so many times but finally gave up and did my own thing.

So the project wasn't a success. I have to say the biggest problem was the yarn combo I chose. The suggested yarn is single ply merino lace but I ended up using Drops Lace and Icelandic lace yarn. Both were way too thin and loose for this pattern which would look a lot better with a more plumpy yarn. Originally, I cast on with single ply finnsheep yarn but couldn't get the gauge. That's too bad because I think with that yarn I would've liked the end result much more.

Oh well, I gifted these to my dad's wife and she seemed to really love them.