Gloves and Mittens Are My New Socks

I'm in love. In love with mittens and gloves, gloves and mittens.

I used to make socks for quick projects. They are easy to take with, they work up quickly, feel wonderful on the feet and most often fit just right. However, people don't usually appreciate hand knit socks on another person because unless you're a knitter you're not looking at people's feet. Another down side, is if I wear them a lot they tend to develop holes and I never get around to repairing them even though I know how.

Well - the answer to this, for me, is knitting items for hands!!! I just finished my Bird in Hand Mittens (one of the mittens that is) and I enjoyed every minute of the process. I can't wait for the first cold day so I can wear them (assuming the partner joins the first mitten).

Can you find the bird? He's in there.

The gloves: before and after embellishment. The first glove was knit the first week of the sprained ankle and coinsided with the death of Michael Jackson. How fitting. I finally finished the second one, and eventually added some decoration to get away from the hand knit white wool gardening glove effect. I think I will actually wear these, and they feel good on the hands.

Now I'm moving on to the Anemoi Mittens that I had to rip out earlier. I bought some Dale Baby Ull that has the proper gauge. We're leaving town shortly, for the Hudson River Valley, so I'll do the knit, knit, knit on my Summer Shell in the car, and save the Anemoi for relaxing at the Inn. Can't wait.

Bird in Hand

It's best to have a bird in the hand, and in this case I have two birds in my hands: a perfect pattern to match my yarn. Yesterday I started these mittens and I am so happy with them. They've got a picot hem, which you can't see since I haven't done the hemming. They have an amazing braid stitch, which was a little tricky. The braid borders the two sections of flowers and leaves. And best of all - the gauge is correct. Sasquatch won't get to wear these babies. As far as my birds in the bush (the yarn I need for the vintage glove patterns), I plan to search for the perfect yarn for them while I'm in Washington DC the next few days. I love my local yarn shop, but a good old fashioned yarn shop crawl (is this an old fashioned concept? I don't think so) will give me a purpose while Taylor is actually having a purpose to be in DC - work.

I've got the names and addresses of a few shops in the area and plan to take my time exploring. I will actually have time to crawl from shop to shop because I'm doing something else, rather dramatic. I'm not taking my computer - no Face Book and no Blogging and no E Mail for 2 full days. It's kind of like giving up coffee.

In the meantime, I haven't forgotten the summer shell. I even plan to work on it in the car. But my enthusiasm has waned. It's just plain straight knitting. No fetching braids, or knitted in vines or birds. Just knit, knit, knit, knit, knit, knit, knit.......................You see my problem. I do want to wear it though, so I'm just going to have to buckle down and knit, knit, knit, knit, knit, knit..................