Sweet Little Things

I finally finished the Pirate Mittens the other day, and they are now not only dry, but on their way to their intended recipient. I like these mittens, but I wish I had done a couple of things differently.

First, as I've said before, I wish I had chosen a brighter pink to provide a more stark contrast with the cream. The skulls look washed out to me. The back and cuff, however, look fine, so I think if I had used these colors as stripes or in a simple pattern as on the palm, it would have been fine. The thing is, I chose these shades specifically because they match my friend's favorite pair of sneakers, so I'm not going to weep over it. She'll love them anyway.



The other thing I would have done differently is the thumb. Anatomically speaking, our thumbs come out of the side of our hands, not from our palms. I have only done one other hand covering project wherein the thumb was made this way, and they were my first pair of gloves. Quickly after making that pair, I moved onto using gussets, and never looked back. Turns out, I vastly prefer a gusset thumb. If I make another pair of Pirate Mittens, and I have the yarn for it), I will substitute a gusset somehow (not sure how, yet, but I'll figure it out).

That said, I was shocked at how warm these mittens are, considering that I used a fingering weight wool (I added four stitches total to the hand). I used Dale Baby Ull, one skein of each color, and US3 needles. I'm really hoping to be able to finish and wear Anemoi a couple of times this winter, but I don't know if it'll work. We've had a few warm days here already, and even though we're due for a storm on Friday, it looks Spring is starting to muscle it's way into being. I suppose I could always finish them and dream about Fall.

I'm making a vest for my nephew right now using Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in the same shade of blue as my Slimline Jacket (I bought the yarn to use with the Astrakhan in the Vogue cardigan). I almost have the back completed, but didn't take a photo yesterday when I was doing the mittens. It's very simple anyway, just ribbing and stockinette. While chatting with Amy, I referred to it as knitting valium, and I find myself turning to it for the small snatches of time I get for knitting this week. The yarn is so soft and squishy, and I love the rhythm of knitting across and purling back. Just thinking about it almost has me contentedly drooling.