No More Mysteries Part 2

Yesterday I revealed Christmas mystery #1.  Now it's time to tell you about #2 and #3.

My husband surprised us all this year with an early Christmas list- once I had gotten over that shock, I moved on to the next one.  On his list were knit mittens.  Well, they were the Paul Smith mittens for Movember.

I looked at these for several minutes with my mouth agape.  The husband, while very supportive of my knitting habit, has firmly expressed his disinterest in receiving knitted items from me and others.  But here were mittens I could make.  WITH MY HANDS.  I actually called him once I received his list to shout in the phone "YOU DO KNOW I COULD MAKE YOU THESE!??"  He didn't really say much.  But I was armed with a plan.  I was going to knit these mittens.  These were the mittens that were going to change his feelings about knitted gifts.

Perhaps I should have just left well enough alone.  There were false starts.  There was half a mitten knit before I knew that the yarn was all wrong.  (Husband likes things in a very certain way and the way the stripes were occurring on this mitten, he would have not liked them.)  Armed with a new, better, and more even striping yarn, I began again.  I got reasonably far...

... but just couldn't convince myself that these were the mittens that were going to change his mind about me making him knitted items.  And so I abandoned all hope and stopped and let Christmas mystery #2 die.  I will show him the mittens and he can decided if I should proceed.  Let's just say, I'm not going to hold my breath.

Meanwhile... I began to feel really guilty that my sister and my dad were receiving knitted items from me for Christmas but not my mom.  (Dad got the socks I finished in January and featured in the Stampede.)  Mom had dropped a few, (maybe a little less than subtle) hints about wanting a pair of mittens after she saw what I had knit for my MiL.  Inspired by how well my sister's mittens were coming, Christmas mystery #3 was born.

Pattern: Elise Mitten by Johanne Landin
Yarn: Pink- Regia 4 fadig - 4ply (pilfered from MiL's stash!) Off White- Filatura Di Crosa Zarina
Needles: 3mm
Notes: My only complaint on this pattern is the chart.  It's amazing I'm not permanently cross eyed from this chart.  Its comes on one page and is minniscule and difficult to read.  Otherwise, the pattern itself is very straightforward to follow.

   

Mom, like my sister, was pleased as punch to open these on Christmas morning.  She knew about my sister's mittens, but nothing about mittens that were also in progress for her.  I know they match her off white coat- and I hope she likes the color of pink I chose.  (They HAD to be pink... that is HER color.)

   

And that solves all of our Christmas mysteries!  Thanks for your patience this December while I didn't have much to talk about or show you.  Like I promised- post-Christmas was going to be post heavy.  We still need to talk about the Christmas presents and tomorrow is our annual boxing day shopping extravaganza!  I still have more to tell you- but right now, I need to go to bed to be up and ready to throw elbows at the Pudding Yarns sale bin.  ;-)