(Finally) finished Cthulhu mittens

The Cthulhu mittens have been languishing in the sewing up phase for far too long now- I'd finished the first one, finished the second one, decided the first one needed the seams redoing, and got half way through taking it apart, but hadn't got around to putting it back together.
I decided they'd make a good birthday present for my little brother, which added a little more urgency to matters, and they finally got done today. A little late, but hey. So here they are in all their runic glory.
I didn't get around to duplicate stitching the red highlights I was thinking of adding, which is a bit of a shame. I'm not sure if they'd've worked, but I would have liked to try it and see.

I think the seams on the two mittens don't quite match up, the top of the right one seems slightly rounder to me. I think that might be because I started sewing at the top on that one and on the bottom on the other. Hopefully that doesn't show too much. I'm also a little concerned that with the seams placed as they are the mittens don't quite lie flat when you take them off, the seams aren't quite at the sides.

Still, I'm very happy with them- hope little brother is too!
Hugh.

Exciting Cthulhu news!

Remember the Cthulhu mittens?
A couple of people asked me about making their own, and I finally got around to writing up the pattern properly. I checked with the nice people at Chaosium(since the artwork is borrowed from them) and they've said it's ok for me to distribute this pattern freely. They also called my knitting 'nefarious', which I much approve of :o).
So, if anyone is keen to give these a try, leave me a message and I'll sort out sending you a pattern.

Happy knitting!
Hugh.

The first Cthulhu mitten

Here we have the first of the two Cthulhu mittens!
I'm really happy with how the run parts came out, and the little raised bands look really good. There was a bit of a problem with miscalculating the lengths of the two sides which meant the thumb had to be moved a bit higher up than I'd planned, but I think this works well, it stops the wrist from stretching the band of runes.

The seams are really not good though, and they don't lie straight. I think that's because I sewed them all wrong, and I'll probably have to take it apart and do this again properly, if only to match the second one which I'm expecting to sew better.



Also, I'm still planning to add a couple of highlights at the end - I'm going to duplicate stitch the little circle at the centre and a couple of the runes on the wrist in red. I'm hoping that'll add some... something to the design, but I'm starting to be less sure, because I'm really quite keen on how they're looking already.

Hugh.

Cthulhu mittens

More evil knitting! I came across this Lord of the Rings hoodie a while back and thought it was very cool, but I'm not hugely keen on LotR. I am, on the other hand, quite keen on HP Lovecraft, who was also very keen on runes, and thus began the Cthulhu mittens scheme.
As far as I know, Lovecraft never illustrated any of the runes, but there is a roleplaying game of the Cthulhu mythos which does, named The Call of Cthulhu.

The plan is to have a ring of small runes around the cuff, and a single large sign in the middle. I decided to kind of fudge this - the cuff is knit in the round, so it's all one piece, then the front and back are knit seperately as two flat pieces and sewn together so that the big rune can be intarsia-d.