Back about a year and a half ago I had an idea for a pair of mittens – a cute little pair with an octopus on them. So I printed out some knitting graph paper and sketched out a design. I thought I wanted to either self-publish these or submit them to Knitty (because what other publication would want octopus mittens? – they seemed pretty niche), and then I wrote a proposal for yarn support and sent it to Dragonfly. It went like this:
I could have fallen over when Kate, from Dragonfly, said yes. Since Dragonfly is not even a 10 minute drive away, I went to them to pick the yarn up. When talking to one of Kate’s employees (who were helping me with the color choices), she advised me toward the Silver Fox and Poseidon. I’d been looking at Kelpie and an Orange that I liked – and she mentioned that it might not be such a good idea, as there was already a pair of blue and orange octopus mittens on Ravelry… which were also done in similar yarn.
I quickly settled on the Silver Fox and Poseidon after that. And then I went home to Ravelry to look up the mittens – titled Octopus Mittens. They were lovely. Amazing. And I couldn’t believe that Emily Peters had gotten to the idea first.
I was devastated. I’d really loved my idea of Octopus Mittens, and I didn’t want to give it up… but I was so rattled by the similarities I didn’t know what to do.
That evening I told Michael (now Mr.Turtle) about my dilemma. His response? “Put them on a pair of socks. Socks are the same as mittens, right? I mean, one has thumbs, the other has heels. Both only have one hole.”
That bit of common sense broke my panic. Emily’s octopus was completely different from mine. Mine was a little cutesy, and hers was definitely more tentacle-ly. Hers had bubbles and the design moving onto the palm, mine did not. And now we were even working in different colors.
And I had chosen sock yarn for the mitten pattern – so no problems there. Socks they would be then! So I began knitting on the socks – not realizing there’d be a lot more to this design. Stay tuned tomorrow for Post Mortem – Part II!
Did you know that Dragonfly and I are running a KAL, starting on the 24th? Pick out your yarn and get your needles ready (or even get a head start!) for an epic KAL.
