knitting neels

Hello again! Apologies for the prolonged absence but things suddenly got very, very busy. For a start, I was travelling up and down to rehearsals with the Moysingers in Ballina over the last two weeks. Then we had our Christmas concerts in Belleek Castle last Sunday and Monday. It all went really well! Now that it’s over, it’s time to get down to business: mittens.

I started these last October (while I was travelling up and down to rehearsals, funnily enough) and only finished them last night. Well, I had the main mittens done and all they lacked were thumbs and some weaving in.

Pattern: NHM #3 from ‘Selbuvotter‘.

Needles: 3mm double points.

Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun sport weight (that’s DK to you and I), 100% wool.

A look at the palms

They are going to my sister in the States (cutting it fine, yes I know, thank you) who knows that she is getting mittens. She rang me up as I was half way through a beret in Louisa Harding’s Hulda (more on that another day) and I asked her, would you prefer a beret or a pair of mittens for Christmas? She said, the wind chill factor is minus 25 today, I think mittens would be more useful to me than a beret! So, she’s getting the mittens.

I love the thumb pattern!

The thumbs were not the easiest to do. The pattern on the front was as straight forward as the rest of it, as there were stitches on hold to continue it on. The pattern for the back of the thumb wasn’t at all because you have to pick up stitches from a cast on edge over the gusset. It took me a few gos to get it absolutely seamless with the pattern on the palm but I think it was worth it. In the end, I reknit the entire right thumb to match the left thumb exactly.

I have two and two-third sleeves to knit before next Wednesday. The two-thirds can wait (and probably will) until Christmas Day or Stephen’s Day… but the other two sleeves both belong to the same jumper and really do need to be knit, since I don’t think my Dad enjoys wearing vests! If anyone has some spare elves knocking around, please send them my way….