I started these mittens back in May, of all months, and finished the right mitten all in one weekend at the cottage. But then I just never got around to knitting the second one, until after Christmas. I wanted a compact knitting project to take with me on our trip to Ottawa (not to mention I wanted to finish them while it was still winter). These are Tiffany, designed by Sabine Riefler for the Winter 2006 issue of Knitty.

It’s kind of been a goal of mine to finish up the various WIPs I have going in the knitting department before starting on anything new this year. While I haven’t exactly stuck to that, I do only have one other project long left unfinished, the Neimen sweater from Knitty Fall 2007. And that project is just not going anywhere. On the needles right now is a new work tote, destined for felting.

I did these in Cascade 220 wool on 3mm needles. They’re a little snug around the width of my hand, especially in the thumb section, and the cuff is quite long and needs to be tucked deeply up my sleeve. But they are lovely showstoppers. It was one of the first major Fair Isle projects I’ve done, and so they were good practice for learning tension when doing colourwork. They were a little “bumpy” but the blocking sorted that out nicely.

Now I’m all inspired to do more colourwork mittens, but I think I’ll do ones with shorter cuffs next time, as pretty as these are. I guess I really should address that slow-as-molasses sweater first though.