Isn't this a beautiful sunset:
I don't know why I continue to knit for teenage (or younger) nieces. One of my 14 year old nieces is nuts about Twilight, possibly because of the kid who plays the werewolf, who evidently played a character named Shark Boy in a different movie several years ago. She's had a crush on this Shark Boy kid for years.
Anyway. Here I am at the beginning of a semester, no less, working on a pair of gauntlet mittens for a kid who not only does not wear knitwear but does not wear gloves or mittens.
We have had some bitterly cold weather already last week, so I was hoping that if I made her some "cool" mittens by teenage/Twilight fan standards, she would at least start to wear mittens.
Enter the famous Bella's Mittens by Marielle Henault (over on Ravelry).
This pattern is written for a bulky/chunky weight yarn. I had about a skein and one-half of Lamb's Pride Bulky lingering in my stash for at least 10 years now. I called the teen and asked about winter coat color and was informed it was 'dark green.' Well, the colorway on hand is Jungle Green, a dark Kelly green. Perfect, I thought, except for the scratchiness and itch factor of 85% wool, 15% mohair. But I figured with a long soak in Eucalan and a short soak in Pantene creme rinse, the fibers might soften up enough to wear with a lightweight cotton mitt or glove underneath.
I had 100 gr in the skein, 54 gr in a ball, and 63 gr in hubby's broken wrist stump mitten that I could cannibalize if necessary. By all the notes on Ravelry, I was pretty sure I had enough yarn to get through a pair, especially if I cut down some length in the palm if I had to. Next step, print the pattern, cast-on, and go.
As I expected, the mitt knit from the ball only got so far, so I had to resort to frogging the stump mitt.
I finished them just before midnight yesterday and soaked them in Eucalan for about two hours; then rinsed and soaked in Pantene for another 20 minutes. Since I was sure they wouldn't dry by this afternoon without some help, I contrived a drying device. I ran them through the spin cycle in the washing machine, twice, to get as much water out as possible.
Then I found two large Pantene bottles (new so they had weight and wouldn't tip over in front of a fan) and four regular-sized jars of diced tomatoes, stacked two-high, and covered with plastic grocery bags. I slid the gloves over the Pantene, balanced the Pantene on top of the tomato cans, brought a small but heavy-duty fan into the bathroom, and put the fan on medium with the two gloves in front of it.
Looks ridiculous, but they dried very quickly. A fast way to block, dry, and go.
Wrapped them up in this lovely World Wildlife Federation wrapping paper, brought them over, and when she opened them, she couldn't even recognize them despite having seen Twilight a gazillion times and Twilight 2 at least twice.
"I don't wear mittens. I don't wear gloves."
Kids. are. wretched.
Does such a child deserve such a beautiful cake, let alone two cakes (see the little chocolate one)!?!?!?!?
Plus, she pouted all day long. Happy Birthday indeed!
BTW. The pattern is superbly written, so if you like horeshoe cables and you can tolerate decreasing and cabling 3 sts at a time with bulky wool in a small needle size/gauge, then by all means make these. I used my Brittany birches DPNS on these (you cannot make me use magic needle), but I avoided decreasing three sts together (no k3tog or sssk for me without metal needles). So if you don't use metal needles, I would turn the k3togs into two sets of k2togs to protect your needles. Otherwise, I am SURE you will break a needle.
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