December | 2009 | the chemgrrl chronicles

Hi! Hi! Member me? I’m the one who writes this blog!

Anyway.

It was just Christmas! (Did you know?) So I knit some Christmas presents. I’m not going to to into the presents started to presents finished ratio right now. Shall we just say that it was not good? But here are two that I DID finish and that the recipients love love loved. Which are always the best kind of recipients.

I present: the thrummed mittens.

I really really wish I had better pictures. Because these mittens? Were awesomeness incarnate. And I do not use those words lightly. But everything was so rush rush rush this year that I just never got a chance. Sigh.

Anyways. Deets.

Sea Cucumber Mittens (aka Thrummed mittens #1, blue and green pair) (rav it!)
Pattern: yes
Yarn: Brown Sheep Shepherd’s Shades in wild indigo for the cuffs, Malabrigo Worsted for the hands. Eh, some.
Needle: US 7 and 8
Started and finished: December…something. Done around the 21st.
For: Eric the blond, nephew extraordinaire

You know about sea cucumbers, right? As a self-defense mechanism, they spew out part of their intestines at predators. Really. So then whatever is bothering them sits down to eat their regurgitated guts, and the sea cucumber swims off, (mostly) unscathed. Neat, eh? Here’s a video. Only slightly gross.

I called these the sea cucumber mittens because it was so fun to turn them inside out and expose their guts! Plus I thought they look sort of like a regular cucumber. Er, if you squint. And take some acid.

For both of these pairs of mittens, I used this mitten pattern, and hello yarn’s thrummed mitten tutorial. Easy! Fun! Cures depression! Does your taxes! For these mittens in particular, I used the Shepherd’s Shades for the cuff and cast on for a small on the 8’s. Then I increased to the large size, switched to the Malabrigo, and switched to 7’s. All purely winged, by the way. No sissy swatches for me. (Bloody hell, am I glad it worked.)

I used 2 oz of roving for the thrums, just like hello yarn suggests. I totally should have listened to her when I stared, though. Because I thought, “Two ounces, for a kid’s mitten? No way! One ounce is fine!” Ha! Ha ha! I only had slightly over one ounce of the green roving. Aaaand I ran out. After the first mitten. I tried desperately to find more roving of the same color, for about a day. Then I thought screw it, the kid is seven! He’ll never notice. So I got a slightly different green for the second mitten. And no, he didn’t notice. But he did heart them.

He’s totally at the stage where he can’t sit still for two seconds together. Can you tell?

Pretty Fluffy Mittens, aka Thrummed mittens #2 (rav it!)
Pattern: same as above
Yarn: Brown Sheep Shepherd’s Shades, weathered teal, one skein
Needle: US 8
Started and finished: Dec something
For: Elizabeth of the golden ringlets

Seriously, can you believe this girl’s hair? I think maybe if she’s weren’t my sweet niece, and not 9, I might hate her just a tiny bit.

For her mittens, I also cast on for a small and increased to a large after the cuff. They turned out a bit on the big side. They fit me! I have pretty small hands, though. And they fit her well enough. For the thrums, I used some Gale’s Art roving I got a very long time ago. Autumn Fire.

I was reluctant to use it at first. But it looked so pretty with the teal. So what the hell, I thought. The nice thing is that I only used half of what I have. So I have enough left for mittens for me, hooray!