Kitten Mittens

Kitten Mittens
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

Three little kittens,
                   they lost their mittens,
    And they began to cry,

Oh, mother dear, we sadly fear
    That we have lost our mittens.

What! Lost your mittens,
                   you naughty kittens!

    Then you shall have no pie.
    Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.
    You shall have no pie.

                               Wikipedia

I had a wonderful time this year preparing handmade gifts for family. These cute little things were knit with my nephew and niece in mind (four and two, respectively). Three mismatched mittens means that you never have to worry about finding an exact pair. And if one goes missing (as it likely will). Then.. Oh, well!

I had fun with them. Each was cast on using DPNs, but then I moved all the knitting over to a long circular needle and worked on all three at the same time. It's a bit fiddly keeping all the yarn balls straight, but after a while it becomes obvious how to flip your work back and forth so that after each row, everything is back in line again. The benefit is that you're always working the same row and it's easier to keep track of where you are in the pattern. And, when you're done, you're really done!

They are knit from the pattern I created for my daughter, working from Interweave Knits' article "Progressive Gloves" (no longer available online). I'm really glad I was able to download it and the related article on gussets for gloves and mittens back when a large number of these types of articles were available from Interweave's site. I had just begun to knit and went on a downloading rampage on all of their technique-based articles. It's a real shame they finally had to come down off the internet, because many of those articles were extremely useful. I love having them now, and know that if I had started just a year later I would have missed out on a huge amount of really useful information! Now I just feel lucky to have a nice library of PDF files carefully backed up so I won't ever loose them!