Mousies!

Apologies for crappy pictures.  I had a very dark, foggy day for them so they all came out, well, eh.  But! I finally figured out why my knitting machine was throwing tantrums!  It was my fault after all.  I was knitting along on Monday and it was screwing up on me again and then it hit me.  I’d been told this in class and just plain old forgot.  My rings.  They run some sort of interference with the magnets and the patterns don’t knit up properly.  I took them off and bam!  Perfection!  Sort of.

Tuesday, I went and knit those mice I’d created. The ones that prompted me to write that post about the knitting machine being a toddler.

I called them medium in the file name but they’re big.  Each one is about 4″ by 7″.

Now, I have these little hats that I created.  They’re absolutely adorable.  I’ve done a photo shoot with souricette 2 to show off one of them.  I’ll blog it soon.  Souricette 2 has roses on hers.  I have one that’s big enough for souricette 1 but I don’t like the pattern on it.  It has salamanders with ovals that are supposed to be rocks and swirls that are supposed to be water.  It just isn’t right.  I want to make a new pattern with mice.  Those big mice won’t work.

Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked on some smaller mice.  First up, the small mice, that should be called medium mice.  1 5/8″ by 4 3/4″.  I sacrificed the ears but they’re still too big.

And I ran into an issue I sometimes get when knitting jacquard. Look at the bottom left mouse.  See a weird line? Here, look closer. I even circled it to help.

See?  That is a column of stitches that isn’t getting knit properly.  It happens sometimes and it means I need to check each row after it’s been knit to see that every single stitch is in its place.  And even then, I sometimes miss some.  Like here.  I’ve noticed it happens more when a column of stitches is the same color for a long time.  I try to adapt my stitch patterns but I still need to check all. the. time.

I knew before I even knit those “small” mice up that they would still be too big.  So I made smaller ones called tiny mice.  I haven’t had time to knit them up yet.  I thought I could go even smaller so I tried.  And here they are.

Agh!  I thought I’d cropped out all the elongated stitches!  Oh well.  No, I will not be circling them in red.

Anyway, I can’t make my mice any smaller without them losing their “mouseness”.  These are 5/8″ by 1 1/8″.  I made them into an allover pattern that still needs some work.  I like that most of the mice face up and only a few face down.  I just need to move them around a little.  There’s a bare spot in the pattern repeat.

These little guys will likely be the mice on souricette 1’s hat.  Or maybe small mouse with a trail of very tiny mice behind her?  As you can tell, I haven’t made a whole lot of pattern decisions yet.  And I haven’t even begun to think about the colors! Hopefully, souricette 1’s head won’t grow too fast…

About deuxsouriceaux

Creative mommy at home to two wonderful little girls, trying to juggle family, sewing, exercise, family, knitting, photography, and did I mention family?