Cats and Dogs and Dogged Persistence

The rain continues to be terrible and not at all conducive to photography.

Despite 70mph gusts and teeming rain I did sally forth to my craft group today. I left the spinning wheel at home and took some knitting. 

This is the Unfinished Object (UFO) that I am trying to complete by the end of this month. It's a Traditional Mitten - the first half of a pair. It is probably the worst piece of work that I have ever produced.

I used to be able to knit. :-)

The thing is, I have been knitting for all but 60 years... and knitting just the one way. These mitts are the vehicle that I am using to learn to knit in a new way. My muscles are screaming at me. My brain keeps seizing up. 

What I am trying to do is to knit stranded colourwork, using my right hand for the main colour and knitting that the way that I am used to but simultaneously working with my contrast yarn in my left hand and using that to knit in "Continental" style, which I am definitely not used to.

I am very much right hand dominant, I have to add.

My friend Gill is also trying to knit some mittens, learning to work Continental style - but she's not mad like me so she's only working one strand of yarn. She has also now given up and gone back to normal knitting.

Me? I'm either plain mad or simply dogged.

That's the better side, by the way - t'other side is too bad to contemplate. 

All the same, I do see an improvement as I go up the glove. Maybe the second one will turn out presentable and then I can re-knit this one. The only thing that I know for sure is that this one won't be on the Show bench in August as I had previously anticipated.

I also took the knitting that I was swatching for, in case the mittens were too much like hard work in company. The swatch has now become one third of a complete baby jacket (top left). Actually it would have been a far better bet as a learning vehicle for a new  knitting method!

I'm hoping, if the weather plays ball, to get out and take some less boring images this weekend. I'm going out to play with Turts99, all being well. A little mini Blip meet on Sanday. Should be fun. If it's not rained off. Which it will be, I expect.