Mittens

Didn't do a whole lot of knitting this weekend, but I did finish my Pink (Raspberry) Mittens. I believe I mentioned the yarn below...I made them with Manos del Uruguay, which is 100% wool. The color is a beautiful, rich, dark pink with purple sections in it. The hand-dyeing gives it such a fun look. It is also a thick-and-thin yarn that made it fun to knit with, lots of texture. So here's the pic:

Oh yeah, the pattern I used was "Pop-Up Paws". I love that pattern and have used it to make several pairs of mittens. It is such a great pattern because the way it is written, it has each "section" of the mitten in its own part of the pattern, so you can use any combination of the different parts of it to make just about any kind of hand covering you want. For instance, I made some actual "pop-up paws" first...fingerless gloves with mitten tops that fold down. At each stage of the pattern, you choose what you want...whether you want a full thumb or half thumb, full fingers or half fingers...and then for regular mittens, I just jumped from right before the gloves would start to the finishing part of the mitten top. I have kept track of my counts and use the pattern over and over. I even made my husband some mittens in the larger size. (I actually have made him three mittens...two rights and a left. He lost one right mitten, just before we were heading on a trip. So quickly got out my yarn and made a new right mitten. Then he found it in the parking lot at work the day we were leaving. So now he has three.)

Speaking of rights and lefts, the other great thing about this pattern is that not only is it written out line by line but also there are complete instructions for right and left. So you don't need to go though and figure out your own shaping for the other hand. And because there IS a right and a left, they fit very nicely.

Here's a picture of my original Pop-up-Paws, which I made in a class I took a few years ago: