Little Prince Socks & Fingerless Mitts

Have you ever wondered just what can be made from 100g of sock yarn? I asked myself this question and decided to test it out with a ball of Opal Little Prince – Little Prince and the Geographer… I decided to see if I could knit a pair of socks and a pair of fingerless mitts.

I made life a little harder for myself by making the socks a matching pair of socks. This meant that I had to remove the yarn from the ball after finishing the first sock to cast on the second sock in the right place.  All went well with the socks and they were finished leaving enough yarn hopefully to knit the fingerless mitts.

I cast on the fingerless mitts using the same pattern as I used for my Valentine Fingerless Mitts. I knit the first fingerless mitt and then I looked at the remaining yarn and collected together the yarn that I had unwound when I was knitting the second sock.

I had a feeling that I might be able to glean enough yarn weight-wise to make a second mitt but I didn’t think I’d be able to make a matching one to the first. I cast on with the cuff as close to the matching of the first mitt as possible. All went well until I reached the point of knitting the hand part of the second mitt.

I realised that I was going to have to join together different sections of yarn to try to recreate the colour repeat. To do this, I decided to try the Magic Knot that I have read about several times. I watched a youtube video which I found helpful to find out how to do the Fisherman’s Knot. At its most basic, using the first yarn I tied a slip knot around the second yarn. Then using the second yarn I tied a slip knot around the first yarn. Then I pulled the two yarns so that the knots butted up against each other firmly. I pulled tightly to make sure that the knot wasn’t going to give way. I didn’t cut the ends too close to the knot.

I used the magic knot to tie the yarn cut out of the ball when knitting the matching socks to allow me to finish my mitts. I was also lucky to have some of the darker pink colours. When I look at the mitts I cannot see the knots. They are pretty much invisible. On the other hand, I can, when I press on a knot, feel it. I would not like to use this join on a pair of socks unless on the leg where it wouldn’t be able to rub against a shoe.

It was really interesting trying out the magic knot and having used it, I have lots of ideas for ways in which I could use the knot to create a magic ball of yarn. I am planning a couple of projects using the magic ball and the magic knot. One thing though, if the knot isn’t correctly done and pulled tightly to check that it is firm, the knot, can come undone.

This happened to me when I was knitting a shawl using the magic knot to join two of the yarns to each other. It came undone and the problem with this join if it does come apart is that the ends are too short to be able to join the yarn in any other way, so I had to pin the ends and unknit 10 rows near the end of a shawl and these were rather long rows. Very frustrating. So I’m really not sure if I would trust the knot to hold in a very large project again.

It was cool though, to succeed in knitting a pair of socks and a pair of fingerless mitts out of 100g of sock yarn. Even cooler for them to both be matching pairs rather than unmatching ones. It was pleasing to turn 100g of Little Prince sock yarn into the Little Prince Socks & Fingerless Mitts and to have nothing left over other than a couple of little bits of yarn.

I look forward to trying new ideas and projects that explore the Magic Knot further.

I’d love to hear in the comments about what you have made from 100g of sock yarn.