christmas knits

Wrist warmers, fingerless gloves, mitts, driving gloves. I'm not quite sure what to call these, but I spent the weeks (and hours) before Christmas knitting lots of them. The wristwarmers were a hit with the recipients and were fairly quick to knit, too. Knitting the thumbs and sewing in ends took the longest because I'm not fond of those tasks. I put them off as long as possible.

The brown and pink ones on the left were made using the Susie's Reading Mitts pattern, which is the same one I used to make my own fingerless gloves. These mitts are wonderfully fancy and very ladylike. They make me want to curtsy and attend afternoon teas. Sadly, the pattern is unavailable now. Apparently there were some copyright issues between the designer and the publisher. However, after poking around Ravelry a bit, I found that there's a loophole so that you can still access the pattern. Just check out the recent comments on the pattern page. Nothing ever really disappears on the internet, does it?

I knitted the shorter brown and yellow mitts by modifying the pattern. The honey-colored ribbed gloves would be perfect for plain jane days, and the cream embellishment really perks up the garter stitch wrist warmers. I'm excited to try more modifying and much more embroidery on knits.

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I haven't joined in the yarn along in ages, but I happen to be blogging about knitting on a Wednesday. So, I'll go ahead and throw in my reading, too. I just devoured Agatha Christie's Crooked House on my new Kindle Fire, a gift from my sweet sister. Paper and ink are still my thing, but now that our library is lending eBooks, I can definitely see myself using the Kindle. Oh, and Crooked House? Meh. Yes, it was suspenseful and fun to speculate, but ultimately the oversimplified midcentury take on genetics turned me off.

{Ravelry links}

Marie Antoinette Mitts

Fancy Forager Mitts

Honey Mitts

Driving gloves

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