The last of the Christmas knitting is finally complete. Kris requested fancy mittens for Christmas, and I was happy to oblige. Except that Christmas mittens became New Year’s mittens, became Valentine’s Day mittens, and have ended up being St. Patrick’s Day mittens.

This is the third pair of mittens I’ve knit from Selbouvotter, and I’ve been pleased with the results every time. I’ve seen vague rumblings online about some of the patterns in the book not being authentic Selbu mittens, to which I toss my opinion into the ring: PFFT. Three successful pairs of mittens, a book full of beautiful designs and clear graphs with a bonus history section; I’m a happy girl. I suppose my goal is good looking, functional mittens rather than historically accurate mittens, but I can’t complain. I love that book! Some knitting books I’ve had buyers remorse over, but not that one.  End soap box speech here.

The only complaint I have with these mittens is my own knitting. Do you see the problem? I can. The mitten on the right is clearly larger than the mitten on the left. How did that happen? I have no idea. I used the same needles (Crystal Palace US size 2), and cast on the second mitten IMMEDIATELY after completing the first. I’m serious. I broke the yarn, looped it through the live stitches, picked back up my needles and cast on the second mitten. Didn’t even get up for a drink of water. How can my tension be so far off from one minute to the next??? And of course, I didn’t notice the difference until I finished the second mitten, lay it on top of the first one and cursed loudly and creatively.I’ve never had this sort of problem before, all of my mittens and socks and sleeves have all come out the same size. It’s a mystery. I suppose one can only meet with a certain level of success before the knitting gods decide to strike to keep us humble. Le sigh. I asked Kris if she minded lopsided mittens, and she said no, but I think at that point she just wanted her mittens already.

For this pair, I used some Baby Ull from the stash and used every bit of the dark grey. I’ll have to knit some more mittens to get rid of the massive amount of Knit Picks Palette I have stocked up, but that will have to keep for a little while.

And now I have to point out my arch nemesis in any pair of mittens or gloves. The thumbs. (Dun dun duuuuuuuuh!) I don’t know what it is about picking up stitches for the thumb that makes my eyes cross. Hate it. Hate!  And especially with these patterned thumbs, where matching up the patterning is not required but keeps me from hating the mittens forever because they are flawed. (Flaws! Flaws!) I’d rather rip out the thumb ten times than have a thumb and palm pattern that doesn’t match up. Yes, I realize and embrace my anal retentive qualities and knitting is where they manifest the strongest. It brings out excellent mittens, so I don’t worry about it too much.

But after 3 months, ripping out and starting over completely once, waiting a month to get up the intestinal fortitude to deal with the thumbs, and a barrage of four letter words that would make a trucker blush, a beautiful pair of mittens exist and now have a loving home.

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