warming the hands

Apparently this week's "knit two over the course of three days" thing are mitts. I am very fond of knitting these because my hands get cold easily, but I hate gloves, and mittens are inconvenient when I want to write or type.

I recently bought Robin Melanson's book, Knitting New Mittens and Gloves. I knit one pattern out of the book a few months ago, but it was one that's also available online (Rusalka). Mostly I would check the book out of the library and drool over the patterns. They're all so pretty. Now I own it. There are 28 patterns in the book, and I would like to knit almost all of them, even the gloves. I have a feeling I would like hand-knit gloves better than store-bought ones.

I started on Sunday night with the first pattern in the book, "Accomplice." These are mitts with a pattern that looks like ribbing, but is actually made from passing yarnovers over knit stitches. I used a ball and a bit of Filtes King Kiki yarn, which is sadly discontinued. I really like it, and bought a few balls last year when they were on sale. The colourway I have is a blue-green with glints of gold that makes me think of the ocean. The yarn itself is a blend of cotton, linen, viscose, and acrylic. Part of me wishes I'd bought more when I had the opportunity, but I still have a ball of it left, and I have about a ball and a half in a short scarf that I never wear and plan to frog so it can be something else.

Accomplice is basically a tube with a crocheted chain at the top for the thumb, so they fit differently than most of the mitts I've made. The top of the mitt is well below my knuckles. However, they do not hinder my typing, which is good.
I finished Accomplice on Monday and started another pattern Monday night. This one is "Filigree," another mitts pattern. I'd planned to use a teal bamboo yarn for this, but when my husband and I wandered over to the thrift store the other day, I found three balls of the Bernat Bamboo for 99 cents apiece in a pale yellow. This is an earlier version of the yarn, I think, since the label has a higher percentage of bamboo, just blended with a small amount of acrylic, unlike the listing for the yarn on Ravelry. It's very soft and a little bit fluffy, and it worked up nicely for the Filigree pattern. The teal bamboo yarn may end up as another pair of mitts from the book (possibly Glaistig, which has a fun lace pattern).

Filigree knit up really fast because, although the pattern calls for worsted yarn, I used bulky. I also cut out a repeat to compensate for the bulkiness of the yarn. It was a nice, easy pattern and I liked the result. The yarn may be too fluffy, since it's already starting to pill a bit, but that's okay.
I started one more set of mitts this week. This time, they aren't from the book. Instead, they are Eunny Jang's very popular Endpaper Mitts. Mine are in red and black and so far, they look great. I'm on the thumb increases for the first one. Either I'm getting better at stranded colourwork, or these are easy. Or I'm spending an inordinate amount of time on them. Not sure which one.

I like this "two small projects done in a few days" thing I've done the last couple weeks. Now if I could only make that work with socks.