Clockwise from top left (for ease, all fingerless or wrist items are referred to as mittens for now):

A few of my own design samples: 4 pairs (8 mittens)
Failed design that I am still trying to work out: 2 pairs + 1 (5 mittens)
Samples from The Red Collection: 7 pairs (14 mittens)
The Worst Pile – Mittens with no comrades: no pairs (11 mittens)
Bag of pulsewarmers in various stages of completion: 4 pairs (8 mittens/not really but whatevs)
Mittens and gloves that live in the Mitten Bin and get used: 6 pairs (12 mittens)
The Best Pile – Baby Maggie mittens: 3 pairs (6 mittens)
Other people’s patterns that don’t get much wear anymore: 3 pairs (6 mittens)
Gifted mittens (from my sister and from Elinor): 2 pairs (4 mittens)

The math says that’s 31 pairs of mittens and 74 mittens total.

Like yesterday, I can only assume there are some mittens in my house that I cannot locate, and I know of at least one mitten on the pins. There are probably more half-knit mittens that I have hidden in a bag and stashed away somewhere deep.

I took another picture from the side, to show the extreme height of some of these piles.

Here’s a confession: I actually think I need more mittens. But more specifically, I think I need more mittens that fit the kids. Assuming it snows (and some years it doesn’t) the kids go out to play for 20 minutes, come in for hot chocolate, then want to go back out. But their mittens are then WET AND COLD. So they need at least two pairs each, and three would be better!

Okay, writing that last paragraph made me feel slightly insane. But I’ll probably knit more mittens anyway. I HAVE A PROBLEM.

On the other hand, the other categories (sweaters, socks, scarves, shawls) are totally under control. No really.

After being used frequently last winter, my Fiddlehead Mittens were looking very ragged. They’re knit with Cascade 220 and handspun and they are so pilly! I went through the wool basket this morning and found a few other mittens and mitts that were also in need of some pill maintenance.

My Girdwood Mittens in Cascade Eco:

The Mallory Mitts knit with Nature Spun Sport:

And my Zigzag Study Hall Mitts knit in Reynolds Whiskey:

My method of dealing with pills is to snip them off carefully with scissors. If you have read The Knitter’s Book of Yarn by Clara Parkes, then you know that for many fibers, pulling the pills off will only lead to more pills. By snipping the pills off with scissors (or a sweater shaver if you have one) you leave the surrounding fibers undisturbed. Clara discusses it much more eloquently in the book – it’s on pages 64-65 if you own the book. Read it again, it’s worth it.

After snapping my “before” pictures, I did some careful snipping.

The Fiddlehead Mittens look dramatically different after their haircut!

Nice, right? It just takes a few minutes of attention, plus some vacuuming, and my raggedy mitts and mittens look like new again!

It was 29 degrees out at the bus stop this morning! I brought the wool basket down, gathered some of the recently finished knits and everyone bundled up against the cold. The newest item being worn was the Noro Scarf that I was working on a few days ago. I blocked it yesterday, and because my room gets super warm with the door closed at night, it was dry this morning!

More info about the Scarf for Jerry on Ravelry. When Jerry comes home today I’ll have to weigh the yarn to see how much was used. The yarn was a gift and already wound into balls, so I’m not sure of the exact yardage. If I had to guess it would be maybe 3 skeins?

Jerry is also wearing his new Asheboro Hat.  The mittens are the Girdwood Mittens in Cascade 220 knit in the Big Kid size. Remember the Girdwood Mittens? The pattern comes in all sizes and would be a quick knit for Christmas gifts! Just sayin!

If you’re wondering about the way he’s posing in this picture, he was being a robot. It has something to do with Looney Tunes I think.

And now for Maggie’s ensemble! She beats Jerry by one point because she is wearing a hand knit coat!

The coat is the recently completed Tomten. Yesterday was a cold morning, too, so I put her Tomten out where she could see it and told her it was cold. I don’t want to force her to wear the knitting, but I want to make sure she remembers that it’s an option. And yesterday she chose to wear the knitted coat! I was so happy.

Like Jerry, Maggie (doing robot moves) is also wearing Girdwood Mittens and her Asheboro Hat.  Her mittens are undocumented on the blog and Ravelry because they were a Girdwood prototype. She loves them, but the mittens are…imperfect. Luckily for us Maggie is like the honey badger. She don’t give a shit that her mittens don’t match.

The scarf that Maggie is wearing is a simple lengthwise garter stitch scarf knit with glorious Baby Alpaca Grande. On Raverly, it says I finished this almost exactly 2 years ago! Imagine that.

So maybe Maggie is not technically all wooled up, but partially alpaca-ed up. Even better!

Check out my new mittens! Well, they’re not new to me because I knit them way back in the Spring. But they’re new to you, because the pattern is in the new issue of Knitscene Magazine. The issue will be on newsstands beginning October 25th, and like most issues of Knitscene, there are a lot of knittables in there!

Fore more details, you can view the Madalina Mittens on Ravelry. Don’t you love the name, Madalina? For the record, I had nothing to do with naming this pattern. I let the experts over at Knitscene take care of that.

Image © Knitscene

The yarn is Louet Gems Sport Weight knit quite firmly on a US 1 needle. I-cord cast on. Sore thumb gusset. Pointy at the top. I’m quite proud of them.

With this new project I’m working on, I keep repeating it over and over in my head: manageable lengths of yarn, manageable lengths of yarn…

…manageable lengths of yarn. The idea is actually helping me and I would have thrown in the towel on this project from the start without the mantra playing continuously in my head. Despite the mess above, the yarn is not tangled, it is manageable, and I’m enjoying the challenge.

My Dad requested a hat that would look like the old Buffalo Bills helmets. I found this web page that has served as my guide. I’ve been thinking about it in my head for some time now, and with my Dad visiting I finally found the motivation to cast on. At the moment the whole thing looks like crap.

To distract you (and me!) from the mess above, I’ve decided to show you some mittens.

Pattern: Family Mittens by Lucy Rogers from Homespun Handknit (Ravelry project page*).
Yarn: My own handspun, from Ashland Bay merino top purchased at a local fiber festival in the Fall.
Start: Nov. 30, 2007.
Finish: Dec. 2, 2007.
For: Maggie.

These were the first mittens I ever made! I liked that the pattern had you use one strand of yarn for the ribbing then double yarn for the hand. Very warm mittens.

The next pair I made were given to Jerry for Christmas, and photographed at the park a few days later.

Pattern: Mittens for Children and Adults from Sandy’s Needle Nook (free online, Ravelry link).  I drew the skull chart myself.
Yarn: Cascade 220 in black and white, knit very tightly on size 3 needles.
Start: Dec. 19, 2007.
Finish: Dec. 23, 2007.

I love how these came out, and they fit Jerry perfectly.  There are long floats on the inside that he gets caught in when putting the mittens on, but it’s not a big deal.  The big deal is that we have no snow and it’s barely cold.  Mittens see little action around here.

But that’s not really the point.  The point is that I can knit nice things.  While I work on the Bills hat and it looks really, really bad, it’s okay to look back on little mittens to remind myself that I am a good knitter, remember to breath calmly, and repeat my mantra: manageable lengths of yarn…

*I’m going to link to Ravelry because I’m guessing most folks have an account now. If you don’t – Noreen! Mom! Anyone else living under a rock! – you should get on the waiting list. You won’t be disappointed.

Here’s something that may not be news: I am an idiot. I keep clicking to my blog and looking at the owl sweater picture, or going to my flickr page…with Maggie on my lap at the computer. The other day I was looking at this picture:

Maggie got all quiet and her eyes widened, and then I remembered it’s supposed to be a surprise! I think it was just a thumb nail version of the pic, so maybe she didn’t put it all together. Somewhere in her 21-month-old brain, she knows that her doll was wearing a sweater, sitting on the picnic table in her backyard. I am an idiot.

At first, I thought that the owl sweater would be the only hand knit gift of the season. But then I got all sorts of plans in my brain about clothes for Sweet Cheeks and mittens for Jerry. Secret knitting commenced.

Besides the frock pictured above, Sweet Cheeks also has pants. Tight pants, but luckily she won’t get any bigger. My scribbled notes in my knitting journal read something like this: “cascade 220 on US 6, 5sts/inch, gauge questionable.” I checked my gauge, but apparently the swatch lied.  So tight pants it is.  The last thing I need to do for Sweet Cheeks is make a hat.  It will likely have large pompoms.

Jerry is getting some mittens with a pirate design on them, at his request.  Mitten number one is complete, mitten number two is half finished.

I’m confident that these last minute things will all be ready for Christmas morning.  I’m trying to remain calm and composed.  Will it work out if I keep saying it?