Warm Woolly Mittens

Miraculously, I managed to finish the pair of mittens in time.
The first, original mitten was knit over 3 days. Before I actually finished it Danielle had tried it on and found it was too big for her. So, frogged, and started a new one yesterday as Danielle started on her scarf. It took me about 3 and a half hours to knit the real first mitten. Not too bad, I guess. The second one took me a lot longer. o_O It was fairly late in the evening when I started the next mitten and feelings of exhaustion had set in. We had just eaten a huge meal at Chili's and not only did it give us food coma, but we were also uncomfortably full. To make matters worse I was having this really in-depth conversation with Danielle about certain... promiscuous phases I went through during college. The intensity of the feelings and emotions I had were channeled into my mitten in the form of regular mistakes requiring regular tink-ing and ripping. Normally, I'd just leave small mistakes alone and just continue, but, I was knitting two of something that had to be the same, so, it required that I follow the instructions the exact same way I had done it before. .... Maybe this is why I can't knit socks?
Well, it got pretty late and Danielle needed to drive about an hour back home, so, we said our good byes. I had about a third of my 2nd mitten complete while Danielle had less than half of her scarf finished. Would we be able to finish by 10:30am tomorrow in time for the surprise party?
I sat down at my laptop at around 1:20 and started knitting. I stopped every few rounds to check on my e-mail and Ravelry. o_O At about 2:15 I realized I had not completed much so I went to abc.com and caught up on Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty. The familiar feelings of watching my stories, sitting, and knitting made things go much faster. I had already reached the main body which was simply stockinette in the round.
At about 4:20am I weaved in the last end. My stitches had turned out really uneven so I decided I'd give it a wash. I filled up the sink with water and a few squirts of Soak and left the mittens in there for a good 15 minutes. At this point I was head bobbing trying to stay awake.
After the Soak I squeezed, rolled, and laid them out to dry. Everything was as it should be.

My phone alarm was set for 9:00am. It beeped on time and in a foggy, half-awake, dream I grabbed my phone, pressed many buttons, and reset my alarm for a 10 minute snooze.
I set it wrong because I woke up again and checked the time... it was 10:00am.
I immediately jumped out of bed and grabbed the mittens. ...
They were STILL WET! In a panic, and knowing this was the stupidest idea ever, I threw them in the dryer.
I showered and got ready all the while praying that my mittens wouldn't felt. ... Luckily, they didn't, I had enough sense to put the temperature on low. The mittens did shrink a little... which was great because it looked like I had knit the mittens too long. So, aside from my being very, very late for a surprise party (I ended up getting there at around 12:30), everything turned out well.




Pattern: Warm Woolly Mittens by Theresa Gaffey
Yarn: Catalina (Alpaca & Silk), 1 skein
Needles: US 4 & 6
Size made: Adult Small




The mittens were still wet in these pictures. I had snapped a few shots before I tossed them in the dryer. ^_^

I think it's time for me to pull Beau out of hibernation. I REALLY wanted to wear him during Thanksgiving, but, that's not looking like it'll happen.
On the plus side, I've decided to attempt to knit both of the sleeves at the same time on 1 circular. Mmm, acquiring new techniques... fun. =)

For those of you who love Malabrigo... and are on Ravelry... Cast On some Malabrigo projects this week using their awesome worsted yarn and then upload them to your notebook, leave a post on the Malabrigo Junkies message board and possibly win a prize! It could even be a skein (or two) of the soon-to-be-new Malabrigo Silk Wool!