MItten Reknit

While running Christmas preparation errands, I lost my prize-winning Chrysanthemum mittens.

I guess I could have retraced my steps but I was so frazzled, I didn't even bother as in the back of my mind I knew I could just knit another pair.

I cast one on just after Christmas so I'd have a project for the car on the way to visit my family at the end of the last week.

Things were going swimmingly until I tried one on and it seemed quite snug. I was using the exact same yarn and needle size as the initial pair. I thought, "Oh heck, I'll just block the bejeepers out of them to make them fit" and kept on knitting. Then I tossed them aside in anticipation of frogging them.

I picked them up again and was almost finished the decreases for the top of the mitt when I realized I didn't have enough repeats of the palm pattern. What the,,,????? It took me a while to realize that when I put the thumb gusset stitches on waste yarn, I hadn't cast on more to replace them.

So I frogged back to the thumb gusset round and cast on the correct number of stitches in pattern.

I then happily continued to knit whilst sipping sparkling wine and toasting in the new year.

After spending most of the day in my jammies and knitting in front of the TV, I finished the first mitten except for the thumb.

The palm side.

I like the picot edge and how the alternating colours on the cuff draws it in a bit for around the wrist.

Instead of knitting right to a point at the top of the mitten, I stopped when I had 18 stitches - 9 on each side and grafted the top with the contrasting yarn.

This yarn is multicoloured so I picked a random colour for the cuff, then used greenish yarn for the leaves and stem and pink yarn for the flower. I won't try to knit the other mitten identically except I'll still do the leaves and stem in green.

Not to be plagued with second mitten syndrome, I'll be casting on the second one tonight.