Chrysanthemum Mitts Re-Re-Knit

I finished the Chrysanthemum mitts that I had been working on during the cruise. I had LOTS of time to knit during the time we were stranded and trying to get home. They are a re-knit of mittens I've knit and lost twice.

One modification I did was square off the tops and thumbs by grafting with the contrast colour.

I tried to continue the palm pattern seamlessly onto the inner thumb.

They fit more snugly than the other two pairs I knit although I used the same size needle.

If I were to knit these again, I'd probably go up to a 2.5mm needle.

They really are a fun knit and are very warm with the double thickness of stranded knitting.

I have enough yarn left over to do another pair.

Hopefully, I won't need to.

Picking up our saga from when we got the rental car on Friday, we had a good drive to Charlotte in the bright sunshine. Only about 50 km away from the coast there was no more ice and snow although it was still below freezing.

Returning the rental car went smoothly and all our flights back to Buffalo via ATL were on time. We even got an upgrade to Comfort Class (extra legroom and free drinks) when the gate agent heard our tale of woe (and that I'd been wearing the same clothes - the only cold weather ones - for the past 4 days).

There was a problem with the airport shuttle back to the hotel. We were not clearly told where to wait for it. Logic told us to stand at the 'hotel shuttle' area with had a heated kiosk (it was -17C) but the hotel does not have authorization to have its shuttle go there. Instead it was two lanes over. The bus was not clearly labelled either. We finally got back to the hotel after midnight. The car was covered in about a foot of ice and snow but thankfully the doors unlocked so we could get our winter outerwear out and bring it in to warm up overnight.

The next morning, after getting the car all scraped off, we did a bit of *shopping, filled up with gas and crossed the border. The rest of our drive was uneventful and we got home by about 2pm so Skip could watch the Bills playoff game on TV.

* One of the places we shopped was Wegmans where they were in a Football Frenzy. The Buffalo Bills made it into a playoff game as a wild card team.

There were football field cakes,

balloons in Bills colours,

jersey balloons,

helmet balloons,

1999 - last time the Bills made the playoffs.

football cookies, (I really liked the green one depicting the field at the 50 yard line, with the white, blue, and red sprinkles depicting fans),

blue and red checkout lights,

and football cakes.

Sadly the Bills lost their game because they sorely lacked an offense. We suspect all these Bills items would have been on sale very cheaply the next day.

At the duty free shop, I was very amused to see these chocolate bars.

Seriously?