resourceful: his and hers mitts

hers and his

Happy New Year! The past couple years, I've chosen a word to live by at the beginning of the year. 

For 2013, my word is resourceful. 

I hope to refashion items I have, buy more things used, make more things myself, and focus on needs instead of wants. 

I chose resourceful partly out of necessity. A new baby means a pared down craft budget (OK, a pared down budget, period), so I'll have to be more creative about the materials I use and be more thoughtful in my crafting purchases (and drop not-so-subtle hints that I want yarn for every gift-giving occasion). I started this goal to be resourceful a little early by sorting through my yarn stash, culling those skeins I know I'll never use (bright green acrylic--what was I thinking?), frogging projects I know I'm not going to finish, and matching stash yarn to projects I'd like to make in the future. 

In my stash organization, I found enough yarn to knit fingerless gloves for a newlywed friend and her husband. They live in Ireland and claim it's always cold, so I figured they'd get some use out of these mitts. I don't knit for just anyone, but this friend showed up at my wedding a few years back with a basket of sorrel and johnny jump ups she brought from a farm where she worked in Michigan. So yes, she's very worthy of handmade gifts.

 

For her husband's mitts, I used the Manly Mitts pattern and less than 100 yards of a charcoal wool (leftovers from another project), which I know because I got out my yardstick and measured 107 yards of yarn. I picked a masculine pattern that used the least amount of yarn possible. I really like the mitts, but they were so boring to knit! I just didn't enjoy working with such dark yarn. My stitches all seemed to blend together, which meant I had to keep checking the pattern to find out where I was. At least it's a quick pattern to knit!

For my friend's mitts, I used a modified pattern that closely resembles the Welted Fingerless Gloves and yarn from an unfinished hat I frogged. The buttons were a gift from a friend who sent me an envelope of buttons out of the blue a few months back. I was so happy to have these buttons on hand; they saved me a trip to the craft store during the Christmas rush. I think the buttons really make the gloves, and they look so fancy (perfect to wear while watching the new season of Downtown Abbey, perhaps?). The only part of making these that I didn't enjoy was weaving in 20 extra ends after sewing on the buttons. Grr... Otherwise, these were fast and fun to make.

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I hope you're having a wonderful 2013 so far! 

Did you make any resolutions?

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P.S. K gave me the mug in the photo for Christmas. My pottery teacher made it!