Mittens

Monday night, we got out first significant snow of the year. It might melt away in some places, but here in my yard, with all its high trees and north facing slope, the snow is here to stay. It is very right that I am working on mittens.

I'm continuing to work on the EZ Mitered mittens whenever my hands are tired, when I need to do some cooking or when I need a break from thinking. They are easy to whip up, little thought involved. I make the occasional mistake, but that is happening when I stop to think about what I'm doing. If I just put my brain in park, and let my hands take over, no mistakes. My kind of project.

I'm also working on my first attempt at stranded colour work mittens. Technically, black is not a colour and white is the absence of colour...well you know what I mean.

I've started with a knit 2 purl 2 cuff. You can sort of see that. The pattern is going to be EZ's Winter Spruce pattern from Knitting Around, though it may be more correct to say it will be an attempt at the pattern. I've already made a couple of mistakes and expect to make a few more as I go. Good thing I know duplicate stitch embroidery. I am a little concerned about how tight the mitten is. The stranded work is pulling things in far more than I thought. I might have to restart just a few stitches wider.

It would be a little disappointing to have to do that since most of yesterday was spent working on another mitt-let, of about the same size before I acknowledged that only an infant could get their hand inside it. If I do restart, I guess that the upside is that there won't be need for the embroidery skills.

One way or another, this first real stranded colourwork project is coming along, and I can see that there is going to be more of this. It isn't entrancing the way lace is, but it challenges me and I like that.

Though there are moments when a simple garter stitch has challenged me, this is so much more. This is challenging me to stay awake, to be in the no parking zone, to stimulate my brain. After I work on it a while, instead of feeling stressed and tired from concentrating on the pattern stitches, I am reinvigorated, and renewed. Just as a good physical workout strengthens you, so does good a mental health exercise.

I don't know, but more and more, I think I should be able to write knitting off my taxes.