A quirky but interesting design I discovered a good while ago and wanted to try out, is the Medieval Texting Gloves pattern by A Crocheted World. It basically is a really fun way of making a pair of fingerless mittens – a pair that can be part of a Medieval themed costume.
Their construction is clever: combining parts worked flat and in the round, utilizing bobble stitches, as well as stitches worked only from the back, in order to give a more ‘structured’ armor-like look.
For my pair, I decided to take it one step further and try a not-so-usual yarn. I chose to work with Schachenmayer’s SMC Valiani, a rather shiny and at the same time fuzzy yarn. It was comfortable to crochet with and the result is quite warm. While the color matches the project’s style, I have the suspicion that the yarn’s fuzziness is killing the ‘clarity’ of the stitches a little bit. The yarn maybe needs a pattern with less detail and/or details that are larger in size.
In order to satisfy my curiosity about the yarn’s knitted behavior, I used it also in another project, to match the gloves. The pattern is Moonstruck Cowl by Jessie Rayot, a simple linen stitch cowl with an impressive shape.
My result? truthfully, a failure!
The cowl turned out to be too big, with a huge neck opening and ruffled (yuck!) edges. To this day, I still scratch my head wondering what went wrong. Did I cast on the wrong number of stitches? Why did my gauge turn out to be so wrong, when in testing it wasn’t? The answer probably lies somewhere between absentmindedness and carelessness. It was supposed to be a quick pleasure-knit. Now every time I look at it, I am ashamed of myself. I managed to mess up at such a simple and easy project!
But the yarn looks quite good in linen stitch. It feels rather light too. That’s why I am in a dilemma: should I frog it or give it away? The yarn was not cheap and the project itself required some work (and certainly time!). I would definitely re-work the yarn, but I am not sure I am ready to disregard the work that went into this cowl. What do you think? What would you do?
