I’m rushing around today, trying to get things together before we leave for the holiday. Somehow I’m behind on just about everything right now, eep! We’re off to Denver for a week to visit Rob’s brother and family, so here’s a drive-by FO post before we leave.

Pattern: Endpaper Mitts, by Eunny Jang.
Yarn: Brooks Farm Acero (the dark blue), Hand Jive Nature’s Palette in Odd Duck #4.

In short, I love my Endpapers! They’ll be perfect for winter in Houston and my why-is-the-vent-blowing-on-me office. Yay!

The pattern is straightforward, although a bit thoroughly charted - the pattern repeat is the rightmost 10 stitches of the chart. I find a 10 stitch pattern easier to follow than a 27-stitch mass of blocks, and I pretty much had it memorized by the end. Since I knit tightly, I went up a needle size for both the ribbing and the pattern.

The one problem I had with the pattern was the Italian Tubular cast on. I used this tutorial (perfect!), but it was coming out loosey goosey. I consulted my Montse Stanley book for alternate tubular cast ons, and she suggested that the Italian cast on should be worked on smaller needles. That did the trick! It still flares a bit, but you can’t tell when the mitts are on.

The yarns are, in a word, awesome! If I were buying yarn (I’m still technically dieting until the end of the year), I would rush back to the yarn store and buy more of the Nature’s Palette yarn in that same colorway, I love it to bits. I think the colors work very well together and they’re definitely a “me” color scheme. The Acero is shiny, thanks to the undyed silk, and looks great with the matte Nature’s Palette.

The photo above is perfectly true to color. One issue is that the Acero variegates ever so slightly to a lighter teal, and it’s almost the same color as the Nature’s Palette in some places. It almost looks like I made a chart error, but I swear it’s the yarn, not the knitter!

Knitting these mitts has definitely improved my continental knitting. I still knit much looser in continental than english-style, so you can tell that my light blue stitches are pretty elongated. I’d also say that my floats are too long - I was being very careful not to knit too tightly around the DPN joins, and I think I overcompensated.

Endpaper Mitts say peekaboo! Ok, I’m off, have a good turkey day (or tofurkey day, or plain old Thursday)!

It’s been a while since I’ve fallen head-over-heels for a knitting project, but I’m thisclose to leaving Rob for an Endpaper Mitt.

The list of loves for this mitt is long, and it starts with the yarn. The shininess of the Brooks Farm Acero combined with the matte Nature’s Pallette, and the tonal color scheme of two subtlely variegating yarns that climb dangerously close to the same color, but never meet. Swoon! Also, the colorwork is like magic - it’s amazing to see the pattern emerge and it seems that the somewhat complex knitting is just speeding by. Seriously, I can’t get enough of this project and I’m sure you’ll see a FO report in the near future!

The Endpaper Mitts are really just a warmup for a larger colorwork project.

More details to come, but this is the first of a slew of holiday gifts that I’m knitting this year. I’m super excited about this one and I can’t wait to see it take shape! I love knitting for the holidays (um, for those who appreciate it), and I love the prospect of finishing a number of smallish projects by the end of the year. Here’s also hoping that a couple of sweaters get finished soon, too - both of them are ridiculously close to completion!