Saturday, March 20, 2010

Down the Mitteny Rabbit Hole

I will admit, post-Olympics, I had a bit of knitting ennui. There had been some lovely victories, and I couldn't see past them. I had some kind of bizarre anti-startitis where no new project was good enough. I spent a day on Chris's neverending black socks, and then it came to me: mittens.

I'm going to a mitten retreat in Chicago in May, and I really don't have all that much experience with full-hand mitten knitting. Fingerless, sure, but I've only knit the one pair of mittens. And honestly, I'm a little tired of them. The angora/wool blend I made them from is still amazingly soft and warm, but they're sheddy and felty and not as pretty as they were back then.

I found an amazing pattern for lovely faux-traditional mittens with Seahorses. And as I spent the start of spring break (as it seems I do almost all my school breaks) trying to manage my yarn stash, I decided to break into the Smooshy collection and use two colors of that. I had followed the Yarn Harlot's Frankenmitten saga last fall, and did something similar.

I started winding yarn on Wednesday morning. Saturday morning this was finished.

IMG_0620

I'm afraid it's going to be a longer time before my happy mitten has a mate (or a thumb)- this week has been too brain-destroying to knit colorwork, and so a week later I'm through the cuff of mitten 2. But really, is it so awful to have a longer project when it's this lovely, and squooshy? I think not.