Smitten (a Holiday Garland) by Emily Ivey. (Previously I’ve referred to them as ‘Smitten Mittens’.)
Yarn:
Each mitten is made from my early attempts at spinning (and dyeing and blending practice on some)
Cost:
Pattern: £0.00 Free on Ravelry
Yarn: £?? This is hard to quantify on this project, but I’d think there’s ~£20 of fibre spun. This was all practicing different techniques so I could have learned all with one colour but why not mix it up!
Such a simple pattern, although even after making 24 of them I haven’t memorised it. I really enjoyed making these and it would be interesting to see whether this pattern could be made with fingering weight and how much yarn it would use, it could be good for using advent calendar yarns. I’ve already got plans for the advent yarn I’m getting this year…oops I’m getting off topic!
Yarn summary and photo gallery
Every single mitten is made with my homespun, even the iCord string is homespun. I thought it would be nice to actually keep a record of each mitten and what it is made of and the process. So I’ve grouped them into categories:-
An attempt at Art Yarn
Fibre I dyed and then spun
Fibre I spun and then dyed
Fibre I blended on my blending board and then spun
Fibre I spun when practicing my supported spindle practice
Commercially dyed fibre I spun on my wheel
Rather than write war and peace about each one I’ve tried to combine the information with the photo gallery. I admit I’ve had trouble identifying one or two but you’ll see when you read more.
1.Art Yarn
A mix of spaced dyed wool from World of Wool combined with rainbow coloured angelina. Sparkle was added during the spinning, rather than pre-blending. I also tried to replicate a thick ‘n thin style spin.
The same as the first
2. Fibre I dyed and then spun
British 56s wool fibre from World of Wool, dyed in blues and some reddish purple tones.
British 56s dyed blue
British 56s, these stripes are knit rather than dyed.
Blue Faced Leicester fibre I dyed to make a scarf with, but used leftovers to spin. Notice the lovely sheen you get on BFL. This mitten is purely the BFL.
Again this mitten used the BFL fibre I dyed. notice the variation of thickness in my spinning, I still had my learner plates on!
This is a mix of the BFL with some of the British 56s and my own blended purple merino.
This is a bit of a Heinz 57 mitten, it is using up some last scraps of the British 56s and some of my own blended purple rolags.
This is a mix of the BFL fibre and a some of the purple yarn I spun from blending my own rolags (more on that later)
3. Fibre I spun and then dyed
For anyone who has been following for a while, you may remember some of my earliest spinning was some Ethereal Ether blend from Gilliangladrag. It was a mix of pastel rainbow colours. When spun it went muddy and when I posted a photo of the bobbin Facebook thought it was porn! I guess too much like Caucasian flesh! Anyway I dyed it with some purple and it gave nice colour variations.
This is more of the dyed Ethereal Ether, but with a cuff of some very early spinning practice with some Perpetual Purple blend also bought from Gilliangladrag online shop.
This is a bit of a mix of some of the dyed Ethereal Ether and some of the British 56s I dyed.
4. Fibre I blended on my blending board and then spun
I think this was my first go on the blending board. I combined World of Wool’s Himalaya blend (a white merino with sari silk) with various scraps of different shades of green to make rolags that I then spun long draw. This was also some of my first long draw spinning practice!
Another mitten with the same blend.
For this one I had a go at blending some of World of Wool’s limited edition Sugar Plum which was merino and tussah silk blend, I added in some sari silk and mohair to make up the rolags, these were spun short forward to give the smoother look than you get with the long draw spinning.
This is another one, I’m not sure whether this one has Mohair in it, I really should have kept better track of which of the home spun mini skeins I was using!! The cuff is some of the Perpetual Purple spinning I think.
This was me having a go at blending some purples on by blending board and spinning them to create a stripe. They were chain plied to stop the colours getting too jumbled together.
That’s 18 down, 6 to go!
5. Fibre I spun when practicing my supported spindle practice
Ooops!! This mitten has a big error on it! The thumb is on the wrong side…Ah well I’ve left it. This was my very first practice at spinning on my supported spindle. For this I was just tearing bits off the merino blend batt, I should have made rolags. In the background you can also see the icord that I later spun on my supported spindle, that wool is Whitefaced Woodland.
6. Commercially dyed fibre I spun on my wheel
This was the perpetual purple blend I bought from Gilliangladrag. This is some very early spinning practice.
Hmmm now I thought this was some more perpetual purple, but now I’m wondering if this was more rolag practice spinning…why didn’t I keep better notes lol!
This one is definitely perpetual purple blend, again some very early spinning.
This is a bit of an odd one out really, a brown mitten in an other wise purple/blue/green advent, hey ho! I wanted to use the tiny bit of the reddish brown which was from the Poppy Corriedale batt I got from the Corner of Knit and Tea lady as a prize, the rest of it is in a hat I made Allistar. The light brown is some North Ronaldsay fibre that I spun.
Last but not least…Well this is a funny looking mitten isn’t it, this was number 24 that I made and it really is a scrappy looking thing! The white is some of the Himalaya blend I’ve mentioned before, this time without anything else added. Then a stripe of the sugar plum merino silk blend (and another at the finger tips), then a tiny scrap of some camel and silk I had left over, clearly no where near as thick! A totally odd shaped mitten but I love it.
Well that’s it folks! It took me just under 6 months to finish, but I’m really happy with it. I’m glad I stuck to my rule of only using handspun throughout the whole project. I like that it has a history of my early spinning, plying, blending and dyeing experience. I wish I’d kept better track of which little mini skeins I was using, some of these will have my first ever chain ply attempt. Anyway, it has been a fun project and now they are all filled with chocolates they are even better 🙂
In the end I couldn’t find a place to hang them in the sunroom so they are now in the front porch which is the 2nd coolest area of the house.
(For any dyeing nerds, anything I’ve dyed was done with Kraftkolour Landscape Acid Dyes.)
That is a beautiful, interesting project! So neat to have a record for yourself of your early work and experiments with fibercrafting. And such a nifty pattern as well!
HighlandHeffalump 
Whew! What a project, and impressive completion.
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What a gorgeous project! It is a lovely heirloom:)
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What a terrific garland that is! Super special and beautiful!
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This is such a neat way to use handspun scraps, it looks wonderful!
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Thanks very much
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Each mitten is really a work of art. I hope this garland will be a treasured heirloom for you! I’m so glad you’ve written up your notes for posterity!
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What a wonderful garland!
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That is a beautiful, interesting project! So neat to have a record for yourself of your early work and experiments with fibercrafting. And such a nifty pattern as well!
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I love this project so much. Brilliant idea. May I use your main photo of the garland as the cover photo for December’s Hand Spinning News?
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Sure, if it links to the post.
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Thank you 😀
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