After making a hat with the brioche knitting technique, I reckoned that I had enough yarn left over to make a pair of matching(ish) mittens. After searching for a pattern which would work with my yarn and was interesting but not too difficult, I settled on The Geoscientist’s Mittens by Sabine Kastner.
I’ve made a start now, and after a few minor errors, I think it is going relatively smoothly (though maybe ask me again when I get to the thumbs!). I always find starting a pattern really difficult. For the first few rows, I feel like I’m guessing about whether the stitches are right. It always looks like a complete mess, and it is only after a few rows as the pattern builds up that you can begin to see that — for example — you are going to knit the single orange stitches on a ‘b’ round and slip the blue ones. Repetition makes this structure much more evident, both physically (in the knitted fabric) and mentally (as you remember the pattern of stitches from last time).
At this point, you can start to use the pattern as more of a reminder than a rope on to which to you cling for dear life, and the knitting becomes a lot more enjoyable!
