I've been meaning to post this finished object for awhile, but I didn't want to blind anybody. The colors really are that bright, but not so...assaulting.

These are a commission-knit for an extended family member. I just need to block the cuffs to make the i-cord stop rolling and then I can send them off.

The pattern is from Anna Zilboorg's Magnificent Mittens, and I love how the mittens turned out. I especially love the thumb - see on the right mitten how it blends in with the palm pattern? Genius! This was my first top-down mitten, too, and although the beginning is a bit fiddly, it's definitely worth it. I will be making many more patterns out of this book, probably in just as many eye-searing colors. My next pair will probably be out of a memorizable pattern - this one was nearly impossible to remember, so I had to have the book open in my lap the whole time.

I used Cascade 220 Superwash for both colors. After all this time, it's still one of my favorites.

...this is the mitten you would make.

These are the Bella mittens, based on the long mittens Bella wears in the first Twilight movie. If you're not into breathing heavily around Edward, you can also wrangle your dog with them:

Someone has the snow crazies.

Now, don't go around thinking that I'm finishing things left and right around here. These mittens were done at the end of November, and I was just too lazy to gift them in a timely manner. So while I was putting off a trip to the post office, I made this hat:

This is the Star Crossed hat, another free pattern I found on Ravelry. It is a slouchy hat, and I actually looked pretty good in it. But alas, these knits were not for me. I finally got off my butt last week and sent them to Kate, who has a very, very early morning commute on the el. Just thinking about her commute makes me want to hide under the covers. But I think these will keep her toasty warm, even if she's just teaching pilates, not running away from vampires.

Both the hat and mittens were made out of Malabrigo in the Paris Night colorway. The hat was worsted weight; the mittens, chunky. You will also notice that even though they are the same colorway, they're nowhere near each other in actual color. That was kind of a fun surprise.

I have less than half a skein of the worsted yet and I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I was hoping to make myself a hat, but I'm about 10 oz. too short, and my enormous head would not do well with a small hat. So back to the drawing board. It needs to be something worn close to the skin - Malabrigo truly is delightfully soft.

I've spent the past few days fussing with my new best friend - a beautiful, shiny, brand new HP Pavillion, completely with 20" screen. It was a combination Christmas/birthday gift (18 days!) from my parents. I adore it. It's fast and the CPU doesn't sound like it's going to take flight at any minute. It will make working from home even more of a pleasure than it already is. Also, I am completely enamored with Windows 7.

I have still found time to plug away at some knitting, mostly some wee knitting that really needs to get done before the wee recipient becomes not-so-wee. While I fiddle with cables upon cables, let's take a peek at the last of my commission knitting.

Kirsten gave me very specific instructions when she asked for this scarf/mitten combo. "The scarf should be long, but not too long. Make the mittens plain. And everything in white and very, very soft."

Huh. This took a bit of thinking - what will the recipient like, what will Kirsten like, and what do I actually want to knit? I came up with this:

This is Grumperina's Shifting Sands pattern. I knit mine with worsted instead of sport weight. Encore made the cut - soft, but not too delicate to stand up to being zipped inside a coat (or caught in a zipper). I loved making this scarf and would gladly knit the pattern again and again. I think it only took me five or so days to finish it - I cast off while waiting for Justin to return with the car.

As for length...well, I'm not really sure how long it turned out. I used a full two skeins of Encore and stopped because I ran out of yarn. I think it goes around the neck a few times but certainly isn't floor-length.

The mittens were more of a difficult knit. I needed soft yarn, really soft, something delicious but not overly expsensive. After about an hour at the yarn shop (I hadn't purchased yarn in so long that it was like I forgot how to do it) and a very patient shopping-buddy, I settled on Berroco's Inca Gold. KNITTERS OF THE WORLD: If you ever have a chance to knit with Inca Gold, DO IT. It was buttery soft, nicely plied, and held up to repeated ripping. I want a sweater out of it. Hell, I want an entire wardrobe of it, right down to footie pajamas.

I'd been wanting to make Elizabeth Zimmerman's Mitered Mittens for awhile, so I gave it a go. These instructions were certainly pithy, as promised, but also only a paragraph long. A small paragraph. There was a lot of thinking involved.

Not that they were hard. Quite the opposite. But you have to make decisions, like where you're going to snip a thread and insert a thumb. I put in the first thumb late one night while watching Goodfellas; the other appeared on my parents' couch four days before Christmas.

In EZ's original pattern, you knit the mitten straight. No thumb gusset, no waste yarn, nothing. Then you put on the mitten, decide where the thumb is going to start, and cut a stitch. You ravel a few stitches on either side, pick up those free stitches, and start knitting a little tube. It's a very simple method of thumb-making, especially if you're doing these on the road or in a place where you can't be bothered to count, but the thumb itself ends up making the rest of the mitten a little off-kilter when worn.

You only notice it on the palms, but see how the thumb skews the straight line of decreases? It's a little weird, and despite my efforts to change, I'm a very symmetry-oriented person (I have to pet the dog on both sides of her head or else I just feel unfinished.). I'm definitely going to make these again - for myself, out of Silk Garden Lite - but I'm going to do Kathryn Ivy's thumb gusset mod. (When I searched Ravelry for examples of these mittens, most of them had this mod - hardly anyone had done the afterthought thumb.) I'm glad I did the afterthought thumb because it was something new and a little scary, but in the past few weeks, cutting my knitting has lost its thrill. We'll have to talk about that later.

I am full of so much hope for the new year. I think it was Brenda Dayne of Cast On fame who always said, "Begin as you mean to go on." I'm beginning 2010 with a pretty organized and clean craft room, a sweet puppy and very dear husband. It's a good way to start.

I could get all reminiscent about my 2009, but I'll just say that circumstances could have made this the worst year of my life, but I truly feel that it was one of the best. I finally feel a sense of calmness in my life, and all of the negative things that used to bring me down have been stripped away. Even the most horrible circumstances are good for something.

Mittens are good for something, too.

I did some comission knitting for Justin's cousin. She was extremely patient, and for that I am grateful. I had to rip out these stupid mittens (well, just the first one) FOUR TIMES. I was a very angry beaver two Fridays before Christmas.

These are Jared Flood's (BrooklynTweed) Grove mittens. I love them. I used Cascade 220 superwash, less than an entire skein. I ended up adding eight stitches to make the mitten a little wider - it really pulls in with all the ribbing, and I didn't want the design to be crazy-distorted when on an actual hand. So four stitches went to the palm and four to the pattern (two additional on each side of the pattern).

I realized too late that the right mitten cuff is supposed to spiral in the other direction. WHAT. EVER. I had no time for that. They are still lovely and squishy and warm.

Good for the unphotogenic, too.