36-Stitch Mittens

This is the first of the pair of mittens I'm knitting - the pattern is '36-stitch mittens' from Knitting Around. I like the pattern - it's pretty simple, and very well explained in the book. There's a nice detail whereby you decrease sharply for the cuff so that it sits snugly on your wrist. I'm not a fan at all of this type of thumb - I do like a good gusset! - but it's fine here because the mitten itself is baggy enough so that it's not claustrophobic. The yarn is Misti Alpaca Baby Me Boo - I looooove it! It was a souvenir from California. These mittens are to keep my knuckles warm while cycling, as even in this spring weather the wind can be biting, especially at night, and when you are charging into it! I'm up the ribbing on the second mitt, and looking forward to wearing the FOs.

EZ knitting for the very first time...

I learned how to knit in 1985, and only first heard of Elizabeth Zimmerman in 2005. Two of her books have been sitting on my bookshelf untouched and unread until last week, when Twitter was a tweetin' about an EZ KAL and this group blog.

My first EZ project is the Norwegian Mittens from Knitter's Almanac:



From my yarn stash: Sublime Angora Merino
Needle size: 4.0mm

After many false starts, the first cuff is well underway but the fluffiness of this yarn is driving me insane as the fluffy bits infiltrate my nose and must not wear black when knitting.