Have you met the Warm Hands Ravelry group?

I am thrilled at the Resurrection of the Warm Hands knitalong and more so by the enthusiastic embrace by many a knitter. I welcome each and every person who has joined the group.

I have set up a Ravelry group, if you haven’t already and are interested, join there too. We are a bit scattered with a Ravelry  and Facebook presence but it’s all good to me. As long as we are knitting mittens, I am glad to read about it on any platform!

http://www.ravelry.com/groups/warm-hands

Happy MItten knitting! My mitten queue  is getting long, there are so many wonderful choices!

The resurrection of Warm Hands!

Well, here we are on the cusp of August and all I can think about is knitting mittens! I am bringing the Warm Hands knitalong back to life! Want to join in? You don’t want to be the only one with Cold Hands come this winter. And winter will be here before you know it. Actually, my hands get cold starting with the chilly autumn weather.

I set up a facebook group for the knitalong but we can use other platforms too if you are not a facebook person. Perhaps I will look into a group in Ravelry.

I am very very excited. Mama needs more mittens!

JOIN THE WARM HANDS MITTEN GROUP<————- Click here!

(Yay!)

2010 Mitten season is here

The madness hath begun! I started these for a young friend of mine – one could say my niece even – because she was feeling some left out of a family event. She’s a middle and I am too; I know what that can be like. So I started making her some mittens. Once they were done, they looked so plain, I decided to fancy them up a little. I’m no great embroiderer, but I think they’ll do – the little red things are beads.

Sorry for the unfortunate pictures – I’ve mislaid my camera, so the cell phone had to stand in.

for my friend, Miss Jordyn

My try at art - no go with a cell phone photo!

I feel sheepish….

In the last post, I asked if anyone had knit mittens this winter and said I hadn’t. Well DUH! I remembered this morning that I made some for my mother-in-law, and here they are (with a matching hat).

inside out

From the book “Norwegian Handknits”.  My mother-in-law was going to Austria over the holidays and she really did need some new mittens and a hat that fit her.  I was glad to make these for her, and I think they turned out pretty well.

Hasn’t anyone knit any mittens this winter?

I haven’t but I was wondering if anybody else had….  Yooo hoooo!  Is anybody out there?

Some easy mittens

I made some mittens a few weeks ago for my friend Kim in North Carolina who was headed up to Canada.  I didn’t get them to her in time to go to Canada but there was snow when she came back and she was happy.

Even though the pictures are pretty good, I don’t think they show just how pretty these things are in person.  I will probably make these again sometime; it’s a really different way to make mittens.

Pattern: Mittenz

Yarn:  Plymouth Yarn Expression, 2 skeins red/orange, 1 skein grey/black (counts as a “super bulky” yarn)

Needle: size 10 US (6.0 mm)

Ravelry link:  Mittenz for Kim

This is a quick knit and fun to do, since the construction is sideways.

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Chevalier Mittens

It was a wrench to send these Chevalier Mittens by Tikru to my Mitten Swap pal, but I did it. Alas, my digicam has trouble capturing both their color and texture – they’re worked in Malabrigo Worsted colorway Pagoda and are the softest and loveliest of mittens.

The pattern is well-written with exceptionally clear cable chart symbols, and only needed modification for length. See more on my blog or on Ravelry.

The Rosebud mittens

The last pair of mittens I’ve knitted this winter is the Rosebud mittens 2. This pattern is made after a pair I saw in the National Museums collections. The original original is called the Kurikka mitten, but this collection pair is attributed to Ilmajoki, where the knitter has changed the colours and added a zigzag line to the original pattern. I have more historical info on the mittens on my blog, and also the pattern for my version of the mittens. It’s in a terrible blog-entry only state, perhaps I’ll have it up as an pdf later. Anyhow, here they are, the Rosebud mittens, version 2.

My finished Eunny Mittens

I did also last autumn finish a pair of Anemoi mittens and a pair of Endpaper mitts. The Endpapers are knitted exactly according to Eunny’s pattern, but for the Anemois I changed the top to a more pointy in order to get the mittens to suit my hands better. You can look at progress pictures here:Endpaper mitts and Anemoi .

Update!

I got a kind reminder some time ago that I haven’t posted a finished picture of my Seiskari mittens. So here we go. The mittens are knitted with Isager Tvinni, a thin Danish merino 2ply and 2mm dpns. Size big teenager hands. You can see more pictures of the knitting process on my blog The Yarn Nest . There is also a link in the sidebar to my gallerypage with all the mittens I’ve knitted according to old Finnish patterns.