This weekend I have been a busy bee, with putting up all the decorations for Christmas and an eventful trip to the allotment. I have also done a spot of knitting, starting and finishing a project in a weekend. (Only a small project, but it’s still an achievement, right?)

I’ll start at the beginning, when I was asked to knit a baby cardigan back in September. I had a few other things on the go and my friend was fine with waiting. I finished that project last week and she was so pleased she asked me to make something else, but wasn’t sure what. I had a think and then (naively!) suggested a fair isle jumper. She thought that was a lovely idea! Then horror struck as I realised my colour work skills are limited/lacking/underdeveloped. Here’s the first (less stressful) cardigan anyway, I adore the ears!

Whilst I was considering what to do and reading up on techniques, my mother in law asked me to make her some mittens. I was only too happy to make some as I had the yarn and pattern already, but I was a little stressed about time and taking on too much. This is where the killing two birds with one stone bit comes in!

I decided, since she hadn’t been specific about the type/colour of mittens, that I could practise colourwork on them, thus preparing myself for the sweater whilst making them.

They are a mash up of two Tin Can Knits patterns-the world’s simplest mittens and a fair isle chart from the Dog Star jumper. It took a little tiny bit of maths to work out where to begin the colourwork, and to ensure that pattern repeats etc worked ok but it wasn’t too complicated. I used Drops Aran weight yarn which I had bought on sale last year in dark grey mix with goldenrod for the contrast colour.

I love the colours together and I’m planning on making a pair for me soon-luckily the weather is still quite mild here, despite it being December, so there’s no great hurry! The chart itself was quite easy to read, and I, for the first time ever, knitted with two colours without creating a spider’s web with the working yarns. I even (having read about it on the Tin Can Knits blog) experimented with yarn dominance as I really wanted the yellow to pop. I think it worked pretty well considering I’ve not done any colourwork for two years, the minor errors with tension will hopefully even out with washing and blocking.

I’m really hoping these go down well, and I was really surprised at how quickly they worked up. Now to brace myself for knitting a whole (albeit baby sized) jumper. That may take a lot longer than a weekend…