After making gifts for months before Christmas I finally had some time to make the things I wanted for myself! :D 

I lost my gloves on my first day off for the holidays. It was like the 10th pair I’ve lost. I buy the fleece ones from the dollar store and they’re the best — they’re warm and the youth size fits me perfectly. But I guess because they’re so easy to replace, I keep losing them! And most of the time I don’t even know how or where! So I thought if I were to knit myself a pair of mittens, I’d be more careful with them. 

I’ve always wanted to try the Ancient Stitch Mittens by Purl Soho, the stitch pattern is just so beautiful. But the thumb part is knitted in the round with DPNs. Not that I haven’t done that before, but I’d much rather knitting with 2 needles, and I didn’t really want to get a new set of short DPNs just for this. So I made up a way to knit them flat.

This isn’t a great photo, but you can see that I’ve knitted the mittens in 3 parts — back, thumb, and palm, then joined them together. Maybe I’ll write another post explaining how I did that in case others are interested. And yes, I was also visiting with some old friends during the holidays :) Mike found his copy of Bunnicula while going through some old stuff at his parents’. 

I also added cuffs so they’d tuck in better inside my coat’s sleeve cuffs. I was quite happy with the finished mittens! But they turned out really huge on me, and I’ve used 6 mm needles instead of the 8 or 9 mm needles that the pattern called for. My dad ended up taking them because they fit him :D

I was determined to give the pattern another try, this time using a lighter yarn and even smaller needles. I used a skein of hand dyed wool that’s slightly heavier than the regular worsted, and used 5.5 mm needles for the mittens and 4.5 mm for the cuffs. And they fit much better! :D

Here’s a better picture of them.

Another project I wanted to make was the polka dot hat. I used the Loving Hat pattern by the Garter Stitch Witch, but knitted it flat of course. It is a bit of a hassle to knit this flat because on the purl side I had to carry the white yarn all the way across. Sometimes I wonder why I’m so stubborn about knitting everything flat… but anyway, the fair isle knitting made the hat extra thick!

My mom wanted the same hat, and because this one ended up being too big for me, I gave her this hat, and made some modifications to make a smaller hat for myself, with wider spacing between polka dots.

For the new year Mike and I decided to make some soup jars for the pantry, since we so often come home from work in the evening with no idea what to make. We used this recipe from She Uncovered. 

Added a bay leaf because it’s pretty :D

More projects to come, keeping hands busy and mind happy with more knitting and crochet! :D Have a good weekend everyone!