Voila!

I have a mitten! I found some time over the weekend to write a pattern, and I eventually came up with the mitten below. I wrote down the instructions very carefully (not my normal procedure) and hope I can reproduce its mate in the very near future since snow and freezing rain is forecast for later this week. I used Knitpicks' Wool of the Andes, Winter Night, since I had three skeins of it and really thought I'd need more than one for each mitten. As it turned out, this took less than one 50 gram skein. I may make a matching hat with the rest.



















I knitted this at six stitches per inch, which was as tight as I was willing to knit worsted weight yarn. I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears as one resource, and also the Winter 2003 issue of Interweave Knits, which had a nice article on thumb gussets.

I made the flap part of the mitten by casting on half the stitches, then using the same yarn, picking up the rest by pulling the yarn through each stitch on the back of the mitten with a crochet hook. I then distributed the stitches onto three dpns and knit in the round.

I love this color; it matches the trim on both my winter coats almost perfectly. The wool is pretty comfortable, too, and I'm anxious to see how warm it will keep my hands in the cold winter winds. However, I'm willing to wait on that test if it means putting off winter just a little longer.

Here it is with the flap back--I had to take this shot with my left hand, and the shutter release is on the right side of the camera, hence the weird angle and blurriness.
















As for other knitting projects, I managed a few rounds on my hourglass sweater yesterday. The finished product will be lovely, but that is some boring knitting going on there!