Colorwork...My Knitting Nemesis!

Every crafter has something that is extremely challenging to them (or maybe more than one thing!).  When it comes to knitting, I'm okay with lace, charts, cables, you name it.  The thing that makes me nervous is color work...

My cabled lace handspun cowl.  Also a Rhinebeck project.

The "item of the year" for 2014 at Rhinebeck is mittens or gloves.  I know color work projects tend to do well in knitting competitions, as it is tedious and looks it!  So when I decided to knit something for the mitten/glove class, I knew it had to be color work mittens.

Luckily Ravelry is an amazing resource, and that's where I set out to find a pattern.  Normally I only use free patterns (yes, I'm cheap!), but for competition entries I will splurge.  I found these gorgeous mittens on Ravelry and just had to make them!

I have a lot of Knit Picks Palette yarn lying around, more than enough to make this project.  Once I sorted out my colors I wanted to get to work, but then I found out I didn't have the right needles.  A trip to Amazon.com and I was set.

My needles came in while I was at the State Fair last weekend (more on that Thursday!), and I was able to start the mittens Sunday.

Sunday and Monday's work.

The construction is interesting.  I already found a few things that I don't like (the lining of the cuff is too wide, and I don't like the thumb), but I'm not good enough to try and change things, especially for a competition entry.  So I will knit them as is and hope that someone likes them enough to buy them!

Progress from Monday and today.