I CO for this one on the first of the year, knit through the first mitten in a day, knit the second ribbing and then it sat for a month.

Last weekend I just felt inspired and finished the rest of it.  Good thing too because it’s been COLD.

Specs…

Wood Hollow Mittens by Kirsten Kapur

My project on Rav

Cascade 220 Quatro in Lupin Twist – I used 200 yards of stash yarn so this counts for the MSK Stash Down KAL too!

I made 2 small mods – 1 for sanity and the other was unintentional.  The little cables flanking the big one are supposed to circle in and out but I didn’t notice it on the chart and I worked them all going out.  It’s fine but I didn’t make the conscious choice to do it.  Oops.  And then I worked lifted increases for the gusset instead of a M1.

I used a ball of yarn I bought 3 years ago for a different pair of mittens.  I’m glad to finally get this one out of my stash but in retrospect it wasn’t the best match of pattern and yarn.  The 4 different shades of plies in the yarn fight with the cables a bit.  It’s not as obvious from far away, but up close you see more of the color changes and less of the cabley goodness.

A couple other observations after a few wears:

• I made the hands too long.  It’s not the end of the world but I’ll make the next pair 3/4-1 inch shorter
• On very cold days I still feel the wind blow through the mitten a bit.  Just a bit.  As in not enough to make me want to knit a liner.  I just make a fist in the mitten and we’re good.
• One thumb is a bit shorter than the other.  I’ll keep track of the rounds next time so I can match them up perfectly.
• I don’t have a lot of opportunities to wear mittens.  The walk from my back door to my car is 7 steps, and then I park in a garage in the basement of my building at work.  It’s so cold right now that I don’t get out much.  One pair of mittens is probably good for me, but it doesn’t stop me from looking at knitting more.

All in all I’m pretty happy with this FO – the color is very me and goes well with my new Weigh It Shawl too.

I’ll catch you on the purl side.

First up were these socks in yarn I bought (and loved) 3 years ago.

I special-ordered the bump from glblf and got it Navajo plied from Plied Together after I fell in love with a pair of socks in my Friends feed.  If it wasn’t for the Personal Mystery Sock Yarn Club I still wouldn’t have started these.  Since they’re handspun they’re a bit thicker than regular sock yarn so they’re knitting up quickly.

Then I CO these socks out of Gnome Acres House Gnome in the Berry Gnomey colorway.

Pink, purple, white and a splash of blue.  Love them.  They feel so thin after working on the handspun socks.

And then to keep in interesting I started a pair of mittens.

These are the Wood Hollow mittens out of some Cascade 220.  I have mixed feelings about the yarn – the color is great but it’s a quatro colorway and I think the speckliness takes away from the cables a bit.

I’m through the ribbing on mitten #2 and hope to be done this weekend.

So that’s it – three new projects from stash yarn to fill my beginning of year knitting.  I only finished 3 projects in 2014 and that bothers me – I want more to show for it – so I’m making more deliberate decisions with my WIPs.

What projects did you start?

I’ll catch you on the purl side.