AH103 Eight Pointed Star Mittens by Arnhild Hillesland

A knitter commented on Ravelry that the AH103 pattern possibly had mistakes. Arnhild created the pattern in the early 1990’s for classes she was teaching. She hadn't had any comments before now, but mistakes can happen. She has gone through several computer systems in that time and has revamped many of the patterns. Sometimes in making changes and reprinting things can accidentally be changed. She works very hard to make sure there are no mistakes. She does not want to have to post page after page of errata as many publishers seem to do.

So, in the interest of making sure knitters will enjoy working with these patterns, we decided to test knit it again just to check. I have not knit it before so I was elected to do the knitting. I am following the directions exactly to see what happens. I am making the Ladies size on 2.5mm needles. The yarn is Rauma Strikkegarn as suggested in the pattern. I chose 2 of the discontinued colors that Arnhild had.

4/10/10 so far I have knit the cuff and hand through the gusset stitches. Stitch counts all came out right and the fit is good. The first design (arrows) is a 4 stitch repeat. The diamonds are an 8 stitch repeat. That works.

I have knit the gusset stitches on to a holder and I am ready to do the rest of the palm and fingers. I don’t see any problems so far. Stitch counts all came out right and the fit is good.

4/11/10 tonight I knit about 2 inches up from the thumb gusset. At this point there are no changes in the pattern to worry about. I just keep following the graph until I get to the finger tip decreases.

I have been practicing holding both yarns in my left hand as I knit. I usually hold one strand in each hand when I do 2 color knitting. I am very pleased with how even the knitting is.I am not getting as much bumpiness in the work as I usually do. My gauge is loosening up though as I get more comfortable with this technique. I am getting a slightly larger gauge now than I need for this mitten so I need to try to tighten it back up. Otherwise, I will have a very “roomy” mitten.
I have noticed 2 minor things as I have been working.

1. The diamonds on the cuff need to be shifted 2 stitches over to line up exactly with the stars. Remember that I am following the pattern exactly. If I had not done that I would have checked for this alignment and corrected it. Norwegian patterns generally assume that the knitter will know some of these things.
   
2. There is a funky diamond in the cuff just under the thumb gusset. This is the beginning of the round and there really isn't a good way to avoid a jog at that spot. Who is going to see it on the underside of the arm anyway?
   

This is a very pretty mitten. I love the chains that go up the sides of the hand. I will try to get a better picture of those later.

So far, there don't seem to be any errors in the pattern so maybe the knitter just misunderstood something. These mittens are not a beginner project but hopefully with a little help, she will get her mittens made so she can enjoy them. I will knit this one and then do the right mitten as well to see if it works up the same in reverse.

More later,
Denise