Jillian’s Spinning: Stitching on Mittens

Polwarth mittens

Soon after I finished the Polwarth mittens for my Winter Knittyspin column I decided they were a little plain. Embroidery to the rescue, right? It should be easy, becasue lots of people do it and embroidery on knits is all over Pinterest.

I just wanted something simple, a little snowflake like I have on my latest notebook.

Mittens and snowflakes

I spun some Romney in a shrieky green with a couple of different ply twists, a balanced twist and a tighter twist. My thinking on the ply twist was, the balanced twist matches the knitting yarn better, the tighter twist makes a crisper line.

My next step was to sample on a swatch, back stitch or duplicate stitch? I found out I don’t like either very much on the first pass.

Swatching and stitching

For both stitches I used both yarns. The backstitch on the bottom has the tighter plied yarn on the left. I like that I can make clearer lines with backstich, but they are a little wobbly and sink into the fabric. The duplicate stitch has the tighter plied yarn on the bottom. The lines for the duplicate stitch are just too fat for what I want to do, I think.

I’m going back to the drawing board on this embroidery. I’m going to try a soluble stabilizer with the backstitch and see if that helps solidify my lines and will certainly try some other stitches. I may even try singles for the embroidery.

Tune in next week for more the of the snowflake saga!

P.S. These mittens are for me, not a gift. There is no time pressure besides, you know, winter.