Christmas Eve Knitting

After feeling for days that my time was not remotely my own, I sat down this morning and started knitting something for fun.  All knitting is supposed to be fun, but once you create deadlines, it ceases to have quite the same appeal.  I did see a pertinent quote on Facebook this morning regarding Christmas knitting:  

Keep Calm 

And Finish it for 

Next Christmas

I would probably make it "keep quiet" as no recipient needs to know that you failed to finish their gift if they don't know you were making it in the first place.  There were lots of stories going round the shop over the last two weeks of knitters gifting a single sleeve of a sweater, a picture of the pattern with a swatch of yarn, etc.  One clever knitter was planning to give her daughter a Dobby sock as a gift, with the second to follow when she had the time to sit down and cast on.

But back to selfish knitting.  The moment I saw this pattern, I knew I would be knitting a pair, and maybe several.  We have the perfect aran weight yarn in the shop right now, the stunning hand dyed Knitted Wit Aran. The color Carbon has been waiting for me to find its pattern.  I like to let these things percolate.  

I did one modification and, when I knit this pattern again, I will make another.  The pattern as written makes for super long narrow mittens.  I guess the designer has long elegant hands.  For the rest of us, I eliminated one of the pattern repeats before starting the thumb gusset.  Future mittens will have at least a two stitch increase on the palm side for those of us with a meaty thumb base.

As it is though, I'm pretty thrilled that I'm well into the second mitten (34 stitches do fly!) and am enjoying the cabling after miles and miles of Christmas stockinette knitting.