For two months I've been trying to design a mitten (shocking! I know) with a pattern of the skeleton of the human hand. If you think that's morbid, stop reading now. You won't understand. I think bones and most other body parts are really beautiful. With few exceptions they are spare, efficient, and strong. I wanted to explore celebrating it with our most complex bone structure, the human hand.
For me, the trick to a mitten is that it has to be functional as well as interesting to look at. If I were to design this mitten in sock weight yarns, I could probably do it. The pixelization at worsted and DK is just too large for the bones to look like anything but a cartoon. But living in Buffalo, I've got to say, I don't think I've ever met a sock yarn up to the challenge of keeping me warm, dry, and shoveling on a ten degree day.
Is there a significant call for sock weight mittens elsewhere? Should I keep going down in yarn weight? No human bones are straight. Every surface and every length is curved to one degree or another. The only way to exhibit convincing curves is to spread them out over a LOT of stitches, and the idea was the bones on the mitten would correlate directly to the bones of the hand below. Let me know what you think. I just might keep trying.
7 comments:
Two thoughts:
-I don't know how you were planning on doing the pattern--intarsia vs. double knit, but double knit would of course double the thickness of the mitten if you were to use a sock-weight yarn, so that could help with the warmth.
-If you were going to go with intarsia, you could always use essentially duplicate stitch over top and go up one/over two or vice-versa for things with jagged edges. I suspect you'd consider that cheating, though, and it wouldn't look as pretty unless you then duplicate-stitched over your cheating stitches to hide the larger exposed loops of yarn, which is getting needlessly complicated.
Good luck, and hope maybe the first idea helps!
~Laura (miss you all at Karma! Madison knitting shops aren't as awesome)
Fingering weight yarn in colorwork is plenty warm for me. I think they are warmer than bulkier mittens.
I've been told by TONS of people I shouldn't knock the fingering weight until I've tried it. I'm designing a pair right now, so we'll see. It's just the shoveling and scraping ice off the car that worries me. A nice lady in Finland assures me it'll work out fine. I can't wait to see!
I hear that silk in sock weight is extraordinarily warm and durable. I like the double-knit idea though - I love this idea and would be so excited if it were reversible!
I'm thinking silk ad/or alpaca for warmth. Alpaca isn't as durable as I'd like, but I'm sure there's a blend out there that will make it work. I just need to find something, knit a swatch, and finish a pattern!
my son asked me if I would make him another fingerless (half finger) glove for next school year in black with the bones of the hand for the design.. it would be a cotton blend yarn since he wears it all the time at school...duplicate stitch or intarsia may be the way to go...
I love bones, also... when I was in art school several years ago, we got to draw from the human skeleton, which is a good way to learn how to draw people.. also learning about anatomy, muscles, etc...
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