Mitts & Bits

The January Woodland Winter Mittens are rolling right along. This picture doesn’t quite show current progress, but I’ve just about gotten to the decreases at the top. I think I’m on track – I got to try them on a real live woman with lovely hands and everything. All systems are go.

I’ve definitely changed colors for the last time on the main part, which should speed things up a bit. Then it’s the thumbs – and then another mitten. There must be a mitten equivalent of Second Sock Syndrome, and whatever it’s called (Multiple Mitten Malaise?), I feel it setting in. I’ve enjoyed knitting this mitten, and realize that a mate-less mitten is just about the saddest garment in the world, but I kind of want to knit the other patterns now. Must. Knit. Second. Mitten…

At my men’s knitting group this afternoon, I got my bits of yarn and knitting instructions for my part in our group’s effort to wrap a tree at the Blanton Museum as part of Magda Sayeg’s art installation.  Man – these colors. Any combination of two is within the realm of normality, and really, even any three colors can be made to work. But throw in the fourth, and it’s all quite jarring. I’ve knit with pink before, but this is P-I-N-K. Eye-watering, retina-searing, vision-blurring, glaucoma-inducing, migraine-making pink. But knit it I will. 

I get to a geek out on a bit of math to figure out how to do the decreasing I need to do – I’ve been assigned a section that involves a knot on the tree’s trunk – so it’s going to be fun for all that. Plus, we get to arrange the colors in any kind of strip combination we want. Oh – and we do not have to weave in any ends. Who has ever had a pattern with the instructions, “Don’t weave in ends. Someone else will deal with that.” ? I’d buy that pattern.