Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Belle Ciel Mittens

I finished my mittens. Sometimes the knitting gods have mercy on you and let the project come together nice and easy. I am grateful and try to stay humble to keep the gods favourable towards me. (Although I suppose a slap on the face is not that far away no matter what I do. Knitting gods are so unpredictable.)

These are Belle Ciel Mittens (2,5 mm needles, yarn my handspun, see the previous post), knit with an old Scandinavian knitting technique, twoendknitting. The technique is slow but I don’t think it is any slower than fair-isle knitting. There is a yahoo group for this technique and on the front page there are two beautiful mittens, that are knit after the same pattern, but the results are totally different. There is also a little videoclip on youtube demonstrating the technique. If you are interested to see more work done with the tech you can visit Krokmaskan.
Twined mitts are sturdy and hardwearing and very warm. My long time dream has been a coat done this way and one day I hope to accomplish it. This also feeds my motivation for spinning since there aren’t many z-plied yarns on the market.
The embroidery motif (my own) is done with crewel wool from Renaissance Dyeing (see the link in the sidebar). I think this wool is the best there is for wool embroidering and I have tried out a few. The colours are the most beautiful, they have this high quality old fashioned feel in them. The wool shines and it glides through fabric like a dream. I don’t often advertise on this blog, and would not do it this time either, if I could not wholeheartedly say that this wool is the very best.

It has been so cold already on some days that wearing these might not be that far away... although I would not mind to keep them in the drawer for a couple of more months.
Knit your hands warm!

Lene

29 comments:

  1. Beautiful and elegant as always.

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  2. Anonymous18:10

    So cute, so beautiful...I love your mittens!

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  3. Anonymous18:30

    Quite beutiful

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  4. Of course they are as lovely as I knew they'd be. May it be awhile before you need to wear them, but enjoy them when you do.

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  5. Those are quite lovely, Lene. It makes me wish for cold weather!

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  6. Lovely, sweet mittens, you really are such an inspiration for me. Thank you also for the links.
    Thoughts of cooler weather makes me happy, we've had many days of triple digit F temps, we're excited because today's high is only supposed to be 96-97F. :^)

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  7. Anonymous19:01

    You are SO talented with an embroidery needle! I like the little red box you stitched--it makes a nice contrast.

    I am curious about the darker blue lining I see peeking out of the mittens. Is it just a decorative touch at the cuff, or a full lining?...

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  8. Anonymous19:03

    Lene,
    I love the embroidery, they lift nice mittens into art. Lovely.

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  9. Anonymous19:12

    They are quite extraordinaire! Love the embroidery detail.

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  10. Anonymous20:28

    Your mittens are just wonderful! I love the embroidery you do.
    Please keep spinning. I would also love to make a twined coat. But I know I would need to watch the progress on yours, when you begin.
    Esther from Ottawa

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  11. Anonymous20:32

    They are lovely! I adore the curved edge before the contrast color...neat-o! I wish you would write up your patterns - perhaps contribute to Twist Collective?

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  12. Anonymous21:28

    Beautiful! I hope I can knit two-end knitting like this. Luisa

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  13. Anonymous21:56

    So beautiful - I like the colors that you used in the embroidery.

    So
    how long is there day light now? And, how cold is "cold"?
    Margie in Maryland*

    *home of the 90 F (32C) August afternoon

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  14. they are absolutely beautiful!! Great job.

    - Julie

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  15. I love those, beautiful job!

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  16. These are delightful! I love the blues and you always add such lovely touches such as the picot wrist and the frame around the flower.

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  17. The delicacy and consistency of your embroidery stitches never fails to amaze me. Yes, absolutely the perfect wool for embellishment; I wonder if we have anything like it here in the States?

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  18. Anonymous09:00

    I love these! Beautifully done!

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  19. I found twined knitting from your site and made a pair of mittens, which came out beautifully. I love how these mittens came out. It's still on my list to do a z-plyed yarn for them.

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  20. How lovely! I wish it got cold enough where I live to wear beautiful mittens.

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  21. The knitting and embroidery are exceptional. Thank you for the links too.

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  22. Those are very beautiful. Good job.

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  23. Anonymous02:22

    Lene, they are lovely! I had a brief love affair with spinning--the promise of making real "Z" yarn for two-end knitting may coax me to get that wheel out of the basement again... We've had a bit of a chill in the air, too!--Aldona from Maine

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  24. These are completely gorgeous! Now I need to go spin some z yarn of my own to try that technique. It will be a few months before we have any hope of mitten weather here (North Carolina, US), but that doesn't stop me from making many woolen things.

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  25. These are so beautiful! You always inspire me. I have a bunch of delicious, forest green tweed on my wheel right now, but I have wool set aside, just waiting to be spun for some twined mittens!

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  27. So beautiful. You are an inspiration!

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  28. Anonymous07:21

    Those are lovely and the embroidery is quite sweet. I could have used a pair of those when I lived in Minnesota many years ago.

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  29. I'm so happy to see the return of embroidered mittens! They were one of the first things to draw me to your blog.

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