More on my Gray Mittens

The first mitten prototype is up to my knuckles.  The cuff goes over my elbow, the vine pattern may not finish before my fingers do, and I need to start the thumb gusset sooner.  But it has POTENTIAL!

How are my carpal tunnels doing?  Well, I didn’t get my splints stuck in DH’s hair last night, but the velcro is wearing out so I didn’t bother to wear them a whole lot.  Who minds numbness and pain when they are obsessed?  (Yes, that is how I got in trouble the first  several times…) I saw a discussion board on Ravelry about Crafting with carpal tunnel and other repetitive motion disorders, and they talked about the benefits of ice.  Brr, it’s so cold outside, I haven’t quite yet been brave enough for that!  (Don’t tell my podiatrist, but that goes for my feet too, fortunately, he was pleased with them a few weeks ago, and I have been doing those range of motion exercises, so maybe I can get away with it).  Oh yes, and ibuprophin.  Lovely stuff as long as I remember to eat before I take it.

My real challenge with the pattern is writing out the chart for the vines and leaves that go under my flower.  The pattern has spin symmetry, that means that the extra stitches I add for the bottom of one loop don’t get decreased until you get to the top of another swirl on the other side of the pattern, and finding places for the x’s to go to indicate stitches that aren’t always there without disrupting the flow of the pattern is really hard; as I knit up the mitten I keep finding places where I didn’t put them right, and I don’t have the right amount of purls between my vines.  What are prototypes for anyhow?

My plan is to take lots of notes as I go along (an other tip from a Ravelry group, this time one for designers, from a question from an adorable 7 year old!) If you can’t read these Ravelry links, it’s because you need to join them, but once they’ve added you (it took almost a week for me, but I joined during holidays, and the moderators must have been busy) then you can read them.

Well, editing can be fun too…I guess.  I’d really like to be someone who records how she made things, not just mades them.  Because sometimes even I can’t figure out my own old patterns, let alone someone else who has never been inside my brain.   And "Knit wear designer," has been one of those things I wanted to be when I grew up since I was 17 and became someone who didn’t just crochet.

Funny, those things I wanted to be have become things I do, but they still don’t really prop up my identity.  I so need to take my confidence from belonging to Christ, and not from what I have done.  Hmm, that may take more work than editing…Umm, I must mean more grace.

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