Baby it's cold outside - WIP Wednesday

Only three sleeps until Christmas!

I fear my stocking may contain coal as I’ve been a naughty girl and done something I really, really, really shouldn’t have done. I cast on a new project!

It has been FREEZING round these parts of late with such ridiculous temperatures as -12ºC when we’ve left the house to go to work. It’s just not right. A very kind person at the Phoenix Knitting Forums included two balls of rather delicious Rowan Tapestry in a swap gift and it felt oh so soft and oh so warm and the colourway was oh so lovely I just couldn’t resist. I cast on a pair of mittens. Totally reasonable I’d say as I also managed to lose the pair to this poor little fingerless glove, the first proper piece of knitting from a pattern ever did:

And and and my mum came over for dinner last night and I couldn’t have her seeing me knitting her Christmas present now could I? That just wouldn’t do. I needed a new project and the sock WIPs I have don’t count as they’re far too complicated for sitting and chatting knitting. Oh yes. New mittens was totally reasonable.

Especially as they’re turning out so pretty, please excuse camera phone pictures as I didn’t bring my proper camera into work and it was far too dark to take photos before leaving the house this morning.

I thought I’d get them looking festive!

A closer look at the stitches…a bit wonky in the middle but nothing blocking wont fix.

A quick shot of the yarn. It changes from a dark, charcoal grey through to an incredibly light, almost white grey and back. It’s soft and fuzzy and I’ll admit a touch on the splitty side but knit up it’s so gorgeous I totally forgive the splitting.

It’s far less blue than it looks in this photo (and the darker bits are darker than they look in the other photos) but here you can see how the increases and decreases work in the pattern and if I say so myself are accentuated by the self-striping yarn.

The pattern is Mitered Mittens by Elizabeth Zimmerman from the Knitter’s Almanac (though I’m going to use the gusset thumb mod I found on-line) in Rowan Tapestry (colourway currently un-known as I don’t have the ball band with me), 48 stitches on 3.75mm needles magic loop. Link to my project page here.

I hope I get bonus knitter points for knitting my first ever Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern (can you call such a short paragraph a pattern?!). I’ve had Knitters Almanac and Knitting Without Tears for a while but have never actually knit anything from either, I just enjoy the read. I thought it was high time I knit something and in these cold times mittens seemed entirely appropriate.

I’m just about ready for Christmas apart from a few small bits to buy (and a missing Amazon package) and we travel to the in-laws on Friday evening weather permitting. The Christmas Monkey I got free with my tea-bags is all ready too and looking very festive with his Christmas jumper!

I hope to be back on Friday with some pictures of the finished scarf for my mother in law.

I have accepted that my mum’s Ishbel will be accompanying me to the in-laws and finished over Christmas which is fine as I’m probably going to see my mum and do gift swapping on 30th December.