Too Many Mitts

There is a slight smell of smoke in the crisp air, a new indirectness to the light and heat of the sun, and tiny active birds and spiders scurrying or flitting about. The feelings of people are changing, too.




First Day of School at Our House






We are preparing in our own way for Fall.


We buy our kids new shoes and coats for school, take inventory of our pantry goods to make sure we have the needed ingredients to make at least a few "comfort food" meals and send our kids dutifully to school. And for us knitters, there are a few additional instinctive urges.


Our thoughts turn to all things fiber. We peruse the dangerously tempting Fall issues of knitting catalogs and magazines, listing our knitting dreams to ourselves, the same way we perhaps listed our Christmas dreams out of the J.C. Penney's catalog as children. Our dreams are no less vivid now, just different.


My own mind turns to thoughts of my rocking chair with my knitting baskets all around it in the late afternoon sun. (The kids are not home in this fantasy...) I have my classical music on the radio and my graph paper and computer handy, too, just in case inspiration strikes. Time is only a vague concept and this afternoon goes on and on.


My hands are a flurry, cranking out lovely gifts for my family and I have a cup of coffee on the nightstand next to me that stays hot for hours...


While this fantasy is really not pragmatic given the crazy nature of my real life with six children and a full time job, it sure takes me away, and it is just the ticket for a mental escape every once in a while. And it is not without its own sort of truths. 

I really have started considering what to make my family for Christmas and have already gone a little crazy with back to school treats for my daughters, friends and mother-in-law. Right now my thing has been fingerless mitts. Lots of them.


I had never made a pair and, for some reason, they piqued my interest through this whirlwind of golden sun, school shoes and newly blooming garden mums.


It first began at work. Some of us were saying how nice it would be to own a pair. Before we knew it, we were on the computer one day after work, then we were on Ravelry poking around in the patterns, then we were saving and printing mitt after mitt. I headed home, checked my stash inventory--a favorite pasttime. I know what I have, I just like to handle it all--then it was off to the LYS to get more yarn for the perfect fingerless creations.

Of all the newly discovered fingerless mitt patterns, very few were exactly what I needed, but they all had great potential. So upon getting home on Wednesday afternoon after one particularly successful yarn shop adventure, I dug in. I knitted one pair exactly as written, then the next three I changed a bit for the individuals I had in mind for the patterns.

One for my mother-in-law's arthritic hands with snug fit and a very fitted thumb gusset for support, so she could hold her beloved books for hours on end. One for my daughter who plays guitar and cannot have loose fitting tops on her tiny hands. One for me in a cavalcade of colors like falling leaves.


I am not done, the madness continues. But if this is madness, I'll live here. Happily.


Here are a few of the awesome free patterns I found:


http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/zephyr-fingerless-mitts-and-mitten-option


http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/75-yard-malabrigo-fingerless-mitts


http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cabled-mitts-7