Knitting in Real Time

Knitting is one of those incremental activities. It builds stitch by stitch, over time. If we showed you  photos of a knitting project on consecutive days you might be hard pressed to see any progress at all. Sometimes, we confess, we show process photos once we've completed the project. That's the safe approach. It makes us look good.

Showing our knitting in real time, however, is a little more risky. We have an idea where we're headed but we might change our minds as we go along and in fact, we might fall short of our goal. We might, in fact, {gasp!} fail.

Grandma Coco's been a bit tight-lipped about our mittens. At the risk of boring everyone with a shapeless bit of brown, we have decided to go ahead and share today's photo and come clean about the plan. However we've cleverly included a postcard we received this week from Kate as a distraction. Isn't it cute?? A sweet little frog framed by crazy quilting.

The Mittenly Photo showing Kate's Crazy Quilted Postcard

The Mittenly Plan

We envision layered mittens made out of fine wool. (We are working up to the gorgeous Lang Jawoll Baby Alpaca we received last week.) We're using sock weight wool because we love the feel of knitting with fine (thin) wool and delicate needles. We also have a ton of sock weight wool on hand. We think of these as socks for your hands. Two layers will be warm and they'll give us a chance to experiment. So, you already saw the inside layer....the off-white wool liners. They'll have a decorative edging at the cuff. Probably crocheted.

Now, we're on to the top layer. They need to be just slightly larger than the liner so they'll fit over top. We used KnitPicks Bare for the liner with 2.5mm KnitPicks Harmony needles. For the outer mittens we're using Elann's Sock-it-to-me with 3.25 mm. Bryspun needles. We have plans for using up some sock yarn leftovers in textured stitch patterns but for now, these brown ones are plain Jane stockinette. They are sized to fit us. We're not ashamed of this selfish attitude. This way, we always have a hand at the ready to try on the knitting for fitting as we go. So, they'll fit a small lady's hand.... 6 1/4 inches from wrist to the tip of our middle finger and 6 3/4 inches in circumference.

For this particular pair, the outer layer will have a keyhole opening on the back of the hand. There will be attached I-Cord all around this keyhole and the wrist with a button loop and a lovely button we've already found. We're not sure yet if there will be wool embroidery, too. We love the look of wool embroidery and we're just dying to do some but it might be too much for this little pair.

So, for now, dear friends, this is our plan. Like all good plans, it may change. There's plenty of wiggle room.

~ Is it snowing where you are? It is here. Big, soft flakes after an unusually snowless winter. Wishing you snow, if you want some, and none if you don't!