My first mitten!

At the request of Alison (a sweet girl I work with at Michael's), I've finally learned to knit mittens. She had two balls of each colour left over from when I finished her scarf, and could I please make her a hat and mittens? So, figuring the yarn (Aerie by Moda Dea) is approximately the same weight as Patons Shetland Chunky, I grabbed the "Cool Weather Accessories" booklet and finally cast on for the "hands" portion of Happy Hands 'n Feet. The feet, are of course the chunky socks that I love. :)

The mitts are knit flat on a 4.5mm needle and then seamed up and the thumb knit last (also flat) and seamed up. I made an "oops" on the first attempt (dropped a stitch about 6 rows above the thumb hole, rippity rip!), but the second attempt came out great. I did change the pattern a little bit, using more contrast colour on the cuff and thumb. I think it looks awfully cute, and is VERY fuzzy and warm! You might remember Aerie is the yarn I knit my blue fuzzy shawl and the muppet hat from, last year. Fun stuff.

So now, I need to make the mate. And I'm thinking, since these are definitely left-hand and right-hand mitts, that I might reverse the colour scheme for the opposite hand. That would use equal amounts of the opposite colours, so whatever's left will be even for the hat (I hope there's enough for a hat, IIRC there should be. I'll have to go back and look at the muppet hat post).

Got a couple more rows done on Peter's sweater too, but these mitts have my full attention now. They're fun! I guess the next step would be mitts knit in the round, and then gloves... maybe next year. So many things to do and learn. I have to say though, Peter was totally impressed by the mitt-making process. He thinks it's clever that "someone figured that out, and wrote it down, way back when." He's very right. :)