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 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.

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 .

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.

The short story:

the Sheep’s Tale

Harrisville Yarns

fingering weight

approx. 215 yards (approx. 196 m) -

$3.50/skein

The longer story:

I keep taking this one book out of the library, because I so love the pictures not only of the sweaters, but the locale.  It’s “Sweaters from a New England Village” by Candace Eisen Strick. The yarns come from Harrisville Yarns wich is located in my home state of New Hampshire. By they way, while I was growing up there, I did knit but had no idea that amazing place or groovy yarn like that even existed.

I’m doing another swap and I did need more fingering weight yarns to do what I want to for my partner so I started looking around and I was definitely thinking about Harrisville yarns-their colors are so lovely.  Whilst knocking about on the web, I found that the Sheep’s Tale had a few colorways and they are almost half off retail.  I ordered almost every color……

Just thought all y’all mitten knitters would like to know.  :o)

but finally, happily, I have sent them to my mother and not only do they fit, but they match the scarf I made her two years ago. Which was the point.

Whew!

For those who are interested, I go into more detail here.

My sister and I both read.  We also both have January birthdays.  I knit, she does not.  So, when I recently realized how nice fingerless mitts are to wear while reading on cold winter mornings - I decided to make her a pair.  These are made from Plymouth Baby Alpaca DK, so they are extremely soft and cuddly.  The pattern is “Ribbed Mitts” to be found on Ravelry.  A favorite of mine - I have knit it 3 times! 

It’s cold and snowy here, but I managed to get my hands on some watermelon.

 Or watermelon on my hands.  Whatever.

 (yarn: self-striping Suffolk wool from Freshisle Fibers.  pattern from The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns.)

My sister-in-law asked me last year when I gave her some Selbu baby socks for her newborn to make her mittens. I started these before Christmas (among other things that needed finishing for Christmas) and then had to rip one of them almost completely out… so I was planning to send them to Iceland for her January birthday and pretty much just made the deadline (OK, so we mailed them a BIT close to her birthday):

What a relief! Now I am going to make myself some mittens, either finish an old WIP (I really should) or start some of the patterned mittens from the backissues of Hugur og Hönd (an Icelandic handcraft guild yearly publication) that my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas.

A few better pictures of the Bird in Hand mittens

Those of you familiar with the pattern may noticed that I put the thumbs on backwards; I still think they came out well.