There is a Tanis Fiber Arts knit-a-long going on right now and I'm taking part. I'm in the Yellow Label group working with Tanis's lovely DK weight yarn and the project I picked was my fiddlehead mittens kit. I ordered my kit way back in August when I saw that Tanis was discontinuing them and was waiting for a good time to start working on it. The knit-a-long is especially great because we're all there to cheer each other on; there are even a few other people doing the same pattern as me.

I'm a little bit further along now than I was when I took this picture. I've finished the first two blocks of colour and started the thumb gusset. I think the i-cord cast on looks pretty sharp. It was new to me and I had a bit of trouble understanding how to finish it when I got to the end. I found a nice tutorial here but I actually finished it by just casting off two stitches purlwise on the wrong side. I don't think it will make a noticeable difference when I'm all finished.

Pattern: Mitred Mittens from A Knitter's Almanac by Elizabeth Zimmerman
Yarn: Cascade 220 Paints in colour 9925
Size: 48 stitches around and long enough to cover my hands
Yardage: say 60% of the skein (maybe less)
Needles: 3.25 mm

---

My old mittens had been darned so many times I knew they would not make it through another winter. I started this pair way back in March but when the warm weather hit decided I could take my time. I finished them up and photographed them just before we flew to Vancouver and had them ready to pull on when we returned home.

My gauge was a bit tight and the knitting would have been more comfortable if I'd used 3.5 mm needles instead. The resulting mittens were a bit tight too but after wearing them for a couple of weeks they have loosened up a bit and are snug but comfortable and do a decent job of keeping out the wind. Today we had a windchill below -30 and it was the first time I'd really felt that I needed the extra protection of having my hands in my pockets. My favourite thing about these mittens is the way the yarn shows off the mitred effect so well. I also think the afterthought thumbs are pretty clever. I was a little nervous about snipping a stitch and unravelling its neighbours but it went okay and the thumbs fit well.

The morning I took these photos we had a very thick layer of frost on the deck. When I was finished taking pictures I moved and discovered I'd melted shoe prints in the frost.

I'm writing a blog post about Käsespätzle but it isn't going the way I want. Fortunately while I've been staring at my computer this wonderful box arrived. This is a Fiddlehead Mittens kit from Tanis Fiber Arts. I've been wanting to order one of these for ages and when I saw they were going to be discontinued I realized it was time to act. Yarn in the mail is always fun but somehow a kit is even better. I'm going to have some fancy mittens this winter. I love that Tanis always puts a postcard in with your yarn too. They're always bright and colourful and something I can send off to someone else to brighten their day.