New Mittens, New Thumbs

Hi, Knitters,

Do you remember these stripey Noro Kureyon mittens I was knitting last fall? I knit and Knit and KNIT mittens for a couple of months starting last September. Honestly, I can't remember how many mittens I knitted, some went to charity and lots were gifts. Well, I gave every last mitten away and there were no stripey mittens left in my house.

Miss Molly has a stripey pair I knit for her and she wears them every single day. Quite awhile ago, I was talking to her about her mitten love and she said her sister and mom wear their stripey mittens I knit for them a lot, too. That makes me feel good.

After this conversation, which was a couple of months ago, TC told me that she would really like a pair of stripey mittens. I told her I would knit her some. Time passed, the weather got colder, no mittens were knit. I felt bad.

Last Sunday I decided that today was the day and early in the morning I cast on a pair of stripey Waiting for Winter Mittens for old TC. By the afternoon I had finished the mittens and TC was a very happy girl. Those are her hands in the first photo. Now she's happily wearing them to school this week and it's a good thing because we are having an arctic blast as they say.

I talked all about this stripey version of the Waiting for Winter Mittens on this blog post.

Click here for the Waiting for Winter Mittens and Fingerless Mitts pattern and information. 

The Noro Kureyon yarn I am using is being recycled from this decade-old project that I pulled apart last fall. Click here to see the old project. And here is all of the yarn I saved.

I Instagrammed about the mittens here, here, and here if you are interested.  

Since TC's mittens were knit out of recycled yarn that was really quite old they definitely needed a wash and a block. The yarn was a little kinked up while I was knitting. 

I love Soakwash for my woolens. Click here to find out more about Soak.

Now the mittens are so soft and they smell great.

On to the other mitten story. Miss Molly's mittens have worn through at the inside of the thumb. This thumb in the photo is threadbare but the other thumb had completely worn out and there was a gigantic hole. The mittens wore out here because Miss Molly had been doing a ton of driving last semester and she thinks the steering wheel was the culprit.

I decided to cut off the thumbs and rip them back to the held stitches from the thumb gusset and put the stitches back on the needles and knit brand new thumbs on both mittens. I pulled out a ball of the recycled Noro Kureyon and began the new thumbs.

I quickly got the stitches back on the needles and knit....

.... and knit...

.... and knit until I had a brand new thumb!

Good as new.

Miss Molly has given the new thumbs on her Waiting for Winter Mittens an official thumb's up.

And with new mittens and the new thumbs I bid you adieu.

Later this week I'll be back with some new socks and some big news. The big news is the reason many of my knitting plans for new and revised patterns have been pushed aside. 

Until then....

xo ~ susan

p.s. I always knit the Waiting for Winter Mittens and Fingerless Mitts on my Dyakraft Darn Pretty Needles double-pointed needles for some reason. I like these dpns a lot, they are warm, smooth and they have a nice point, perfect for mitten knitting.