Recall how I went to the yarn store?

And do you remember that ball of Gradient from Schoppel that came home with me?

Well, the weekend being swathed in angst about Christmas trees and all, well, I started working on the wristwarmer/fingerless gloves.

I did exactly what I planned.  I split the ball of yarn into two.

Well, two and a bit.  Sadly it only had one section of this seriously fine blue in it.  I am going to have to split that between the two gloves and it may be the thumbs that gain, or the tops of each of the finger bits. We shall see.

Then I took out the books. I checked over the lovely Alice Starmore Aran Knitting book and looked at what I thought I might do.  Then I went to Clara Parkes Book of Wool (the Book of Yarn where the Maine Morning Mitt pattern is, was right below).  I opened it to the section with hats and mitts and voila.  What did I see, but a nice little pattern, all laid out for me.

Sweet Fern Mitts are everything I wanted.  It is a very similar pattern to what I was looking at, the gauge was exactly what this yarn will support nicely and voila!

Who could not fall in love with that.  It is just so right for what I wanted when she asked!  And the yarn is so much nicer than i ever hoped.  Superior crisp lines and edges.  (so much so that even I could see the last two cable sections with the extra row in them, which had to be taken out and reworked.)

If you have never tried working with yarns like this, with their single ply, almost felted look and feel, do consider trying them.  Their little bit firm look and different feel just do certain things (like cables) extra ordinarily well.  I have worked with something with a similar texture once before.  It was a pure silk yarn, but it worked up into the most amazing textured scarf.   

I'm in heaven.  But then when am I not when it is wool?