White-Knuckle Knitting

I have been possessed this week by the Spirit of Mittens. I have never finished a project this complex this quickly, but it was like a really good book- I just couldn't put it down until I knew how it would all turn out.

Okay, I've only finished one mitten, but it's enough to give me a fairly clear idea how this story goes. I'll sum up the plot for you.

Here's the story of the back.



Pretty cabled goodness in shades of brown and purple. The cuff rolls a bit, but this is pre-blocking, so I'm not worried. I'm not worried for other reasons, but we'll get to that.

Here's the palm...



I love how the pattern continues on the thumb. I was quite tense during the white-knuckle knitting I endured while transferring the stitches from the waste yarn on to a needle, discovering I had two stitches to every one needed on the top needle, figuring out how to carefully K2Tog across them all... (is this normal? Should I have had to do this?) ... ending up with a thumb that was not quite perfect but not bad for a first attempt.

The huge holes on the side where the thumb was added concerned me for a bit, until I read the instruction to sew them up and realized that this was a normal occurrence. (Although I'd love to pick up two extra stitches in those holes at the beginning of the thumb and add another pair of purple edge stitches. Do you think this is permissible with the Mitten Gods?)

I ad-libbed a bit for the reverse of the thumb, but am happy with it overall.



There's a problem, though. Gauge, that lying rat-bastard, lied to me again. THEY DON'T FIT.
I swatched three times. I measured carefully. And they are still way, way too small. The thumb crotch is not in the right place, and I can't even dream about knitting in the divinely soft angora lining.

That being said, I'm not really that upset. They were so darned fun to knit, I'm game for casting on immediately for another, much larger, pair. This one? Let's call it a lesson.

However, I think I'll finish off the alpaca scarf first. As you can see by the pretty white background behind the mitten, winter arrived much earlier than anticipated and suddenly I need me a scarf.