Linen Stitch Mitts

Well, right now I'm working on a new pattern for fingerless mitts. I wanted to make something with tons of color and no real obvious color pattern. I also wanted to have all the different colors mix together but I didn't feel like working with more than one yarn per row. So, the perfect solution to accommodate all these various wishes seemed to be the linen stitch.  

Here's a picture of my progress so far:

I'm working it flat which I've never done with mittens (I'm a huge magic loop fan) and I'm having a wonderful time figuring out the gusset. Here's a few things I'm learning as I go:

1. I find the best increase for the linen stitch is the kfb since you are working with an existing stitch and don't have to be bothered about where to make a new stitch as you would with the M1R or M1L which can be tricky with all those slipped stitches lying around. 

2. Increasing will mess up the nice "A B A B" color pattern the linen stitch makes when you switch colors every two rows. Therefore, I had to mix up the pattern a little and work the same color for 3-4 rows, increasing on the third row when all the stitches on the needle are already the same color.

3. Linen stitch makes a very tight piece of fabric, so I'm adding many more stitches to the gusset than I would if working in a looser stitch.  

Also, since I wanted to use several different colors but I didn't want to have to buy a ton of yarn and only use a little from each skein. So, I bought a couple skeins of self-striping sock yarn. Then I cut those skeins up according to color and wound a bunch of mini-skeins. You can buy bobbins for purposes such as this, like these ones from knitpicks: http://www.knitpicks.com/accessories/Knitting_Yarn_Bobbins__DYarnBobbins.html. But I wanted to get knitting and didn't want to wait for them to be delivered. So, I improvised and used the spools from my dog's poop bags to wind the yarn around. New uses for old things!

Once I get these finished, I'll post a pattern.