When they only sort-of match. Kind of.

Here are my 1.4 mittens. As you can see, they’re very quick. Even faster to do than socks. Now I can see how girls of long ago had the goal of knitting an absurdly large number of mittens to stow away in their hope chests against the needs of their future family. At my almost half a mitten a night rate (in about 1.5 hours of knitting time), I could do a pair a week and still have time left over for other knitting.

Too much fun, especially since I have no hope chest deadline. I think I’ll have to do another pair for me. Another chance to graph, and to do so on a larger field (at least 35×69 boxes to the mitten tip, instead of 28×61, perhaps a few more). Now, what to put on mine… Sprites from old computer games? Cute, but hardly original at this point. Words? I would have to find some pithy piece I could endure reading day after day. Some other graphed pattern from my book? Perhaps the bunny I shared here before? Something from my out-take notes – the patterns that weren’t documented well enough to make it into the book, or proved out to be from after 1600? Perhaps. Some doodle with no prior precedent? Also not unlikely. One caveat though, I may be delayed in my start on my sequel mittens. I’ve gotten a begging/pleading/groveling request for another Klein Bottle hat.

Two quick cheats – Got a mitten or other strong left/right directional chart on your computer and want a quick and foolproof way to swap that left/right thumb placement without sitting down and taking the two tedious minutes to transcribe it on the hard copy? Most printer drivers in both the Windows and Macintosh worlds have a “print mirror image” setting buried way down on their Advanced Features page, accessible off the printer set-up or print controls dialog page. Use that to print a new copy of your graph. Instant left/right swap.

Or if your printer driver doesn’t have that setting, get a sheet of clear viewgraph transparency plastic that’s meant to go through your printer (the stuff that’s used on overhead projectors). Print on that. Put the result in a page protector with a sheet of white paper behind it. When time comes to do that second mitten, flip it over. Overhead transparencies are becoming rare in this day of cheap full screen projectors, but many teachers still use them and they’re still in the office supply stores.

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